Only the most ridiculous statement in a typically delusional, or rather totally dishonest article:

'16 May: Russia launched a massive, co-ordinated missile strike on Kyiv, probably aimed at the Patriot battery itself, including six Kinzhals, nine Kalibr cruise missiles, three long-range ballistic missiles and nine drones - all of which were shot down, though with confirmed but unspecified damage to the Patriot battery.

[...]

For the UK, which is about to publish a new Defence Command Paper outlining its force structures and procurement priorities in light of the Ukraine war, there are some immediate implications.

First, the success of the Patriots against hypersonic missiles means we should think about buying some. The new, UK-made Land Ceptor is a battlefield air defence system and does not have the range or speed of the PAC-3. As RUSI analyst Justin Bronk points out, the absence of Patriot-equivalent defences for NATO airbases remains a strategic weakness if Russia re-equips.

[...]

It is now possible to imagine Ukraine’s army makes territorial gains over the summer, and then its airforce takes over in the autumn. With the full backing of a geared-up Western defence industry a combination of the F-16 and Storm Shadow strikes could make life suddenly very unpleasant for Russian occupying forces in the whole of Donbas/Crimea. Indeed it could make Russia’s naval presence in the Black Sea quite risky in process.

And that’s the ultimate meaning of the intensified air war.

Now that he has started throwing Kinzhals at Kyiv and losing them, Putin knows he is in a large-scale economic war of attrition with the West, against a supply chain with global scale. And without Chinese help, there is only going to be one winner.' - https://htsf.substack.com/p/ukraine-making-sense-of-the-kinzhal

He cites that Telegraph article approvingly, I think the same one that speculated the Patriot may have been damaged by falling bits of Kinzhal shrapnel. More idiocy/mendacity in this article:

'What can break that arrogance, along with the propensity to rape, torture, murder and mutilate that ordinary Russian troops have become infamous for? Total defeat on the battlefield. This will cost many Ukrainian lives. All we in the west can do is to make sure the Ukrainians who want to fight do so with the best equipment, the best training and adequate supplies.

What’s coming will not be pretty. We could, for the first time, see Iraq-style encirclements of Russian units and mass surrenders. We will certainly hear threats of nuclear retaliation. But the biggest sanctions ever imposed on a country since the second world war haven’t worked fast enough to protect Putin’s victims, so it will have to be done through warfare.

Putin chose this. He could choose to end it today. I hope for the sake of those doing the fighting, on all sides, that those around him can persuade him to cut his losses quickly.' - https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/sanctions-against-putin-arent-working-fast-enough-so-it-will-have-to-be-guns/

What's that conservative quip about socialists always being prepared to spend other peoples' money? Mason and cynical goons like him appear to be very happy to spend Ukrainian lives to achieve their goals, all the while posing as 'solidarity'. Why isn't he on the front lines himself if he cares so much?

jeers,
I