So the power in the land has moved from Winchester boy Dishy Rishi Sunak to Old Etonian KamiKwasi Kwarteng. And as Sunak leaves the frontbench frontline to spend more time with his millions, Kwarteng delivers a mega-mini-budget so brazenly designed for the pound-shorting hedge-funders and the Tory Party donor-sphere it makes you wonder whether Liz Truss is a very high-profile undercover agent for the BBB campaign.

That’s BBB as in Bring Back Boris, whose founder and campaign director, Boris Johnson, is currently getting his mates to call round Red Wall MPs asking whether they miss having someone who at least pretended to be there for the many, not the few, and talked the talk about levelling up. This new version of the 12-year-old Tory virus doesn’t even bother with the pretence. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out – in the absence of any factual, non-gaslighting government assessment – earn less than £155,000 a year, and you’re worse off. Earn more and you’re way better off, with poorer people helping you out.

As Truss sat watching the backside of the close friend and now economic bedfellow she appointed as chancellor, as he stood erect at the Dispatch Box tossing out goodies to his old school pals, the message could not have been clearer – oh, she does love to be “very clear about this”: “We’re a bunch of smug, cruel, arrogant, know-it-all ideologues who wrote a book a while back about slashing taxes for the rich, shredding regulations for the corporates and smashing rights for idle British workers, called Britannia Unchained, and we have gone from being remaindered to becoming Masters of the Universe, so fuck the lot of you, we’re giving it a go. And if it all goes tits up, the pound-shorters will look after us, so it’s win-win even if we lose to Labour.”

One despairing northern Tory even suggested to me that the only logic he could see in KamiKwasi’s strategy was that it was aimed less at winning an election than winning riches for the mates of the Masters of the Universe, and letting Labour in with an economic landscape so reduced to rubble they would never be able to sort it in time for the election after next.

I’m not sure I buy that. I have the feeling Truss believes this can be a winning strategy. The Thatcher trickle-down tribute band act won her the leadership election, and she reckons it can win her a general election, too. Policy “shock and awe” was necessary to try to get away for the third time in six years with the con that a new PM means a new government, and that despite being a minister with Cameron, May and Johnson, the failings of a wasted decade have nothing to do with her. This is made easier by those media outlets propagandising for her as readily as they did for her predecessors. “At last a true Tory budget” rejoiced Lord Dacre of Pyongyang’s Daily Mail, without reference to the fawning headlines over those of KamiKwasi’s predecessors.

As for the Express, how many Tory PMs do we have to have before their readers realise the paper is literally churning out cut-and-paste bullshit for all of them, on their amazing abilities to deliver on endlessly repeated promises to get the economy roaring, show the world what a success Brexit is, fix the NHS, fix social care, and all the other stuff they have all spectacularly failed to do?

Far more important than anything the papers said, mind you, were the strong statements by the RSPB and the National Trust against what they see as the massive threat to wildlife posed by 38 new low-regulation “investment zones”. If I were Lizzie Twarteng, I would not fancy taking on a radicalised RSPB. I joined today.

Two huge stories last week that barely figured on most of the media’s radar yet which, had they happened under Labour, would have sent the press into meltdown.

First, the shorting of the pound I mentioned above. When George Soros made millions betting against sterling ahead of Black Wednesday 30 years ago, he was making a judgment based on hard-headed economic and political analysis. Last week’s mega-mini-budget pound-shorters seem to have had access to decision-makers and decisions ahead of time. Sounds like insider trading to me. If it had been under Labour, I’m sure Yates of the Yard would have been all over it.

The second story concerns Mark Fullbrook, Truss’s chief of staff, whose salary is being paid not by the government but by his lobbying company. This is the same Fullbrook who had been quizzed by the FBI about his role in an overseas political funding scandal, another real news story that sank without trace.

“It is not unusual for a special adviser or civil servant to join government on secondment,” said No 10 in defence of the Fullbrook arrangement. Come again? We are not talking about someone helping manage a new IT system at the Department of Paperclips. We are talking about the chief of staff to the prime minister.

There were questions raised about whether this bizarre arrangement was so Fullbrook could avoid paying tax, which, given the nature of this government, would not be a surprise. Tax, like the law, is for the little people. But it misses the point. The arrangement represents a clear conflict of interest. I hate that old phrase “it wouldn’t have happened in my day,” but, well, it wouldn’t, and if it had, my God you would have heard of it by now. Lord Dacre of Pyongyang would have gone full Starmerbeergate mode by now.

I hope some of you caught, and enjoyed, the first episode of Make Me Prime Minister on Tuesday, the new Channel 4 series in which Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi and I are on the hunt for an alternative PM. Twelve contestants – 11 now that we have had the first elimination after the battle to find a good education policy – are competing to show they have what it takes.

Sunday Times journalist Tim Shipman, one of the media figures occasionally putting our candidates through their paces, accurately pointed out that there was a greater rigour to our process than the one that saw the Tories choose between Truss and Sunak (neither of whom would have made our final!).

I was also thrilled to see him write that he felt confident, having seen some of the episodes, that as well as being good telly, the series should be good for politics, too. Let’s hope so. My God, we need new blood, and if you stick with the series, I think you will see that several of the candidates are easily as good as some of the politicians we regularly see on the news.

It was great fun working with Sayeeda Warsi, who may be a Tory, but she is northern, warm, loves a good laugh, and loathes what her party has become and is doing to the country almost as much as I do. She also has a very good habit of saying what she thinks. So when we were interviewed by the Times magazine, I loved that she wasn’t buying into the idea that Liz Truss putting people of colour into top jobs in government somehow gave her or the government a free pass on racism. Sayeeda, remember, was at the forefront of the campaign to get her party to take Islamophobia seriously.

“Just because somebody is female or black or brown, if they’ve got nasty ideas, they’re still nasty people,” she said. I heard enough over the weeks we spent filming together to know who she meant. Clue? We saw a lot of them during the leadership election, and are seeing plenty of them on the front bench now.

Thirty former FBI agents, including a retired deputy assistant director, head of counterterrorism and five SWAT team members, have spoken out publicly in support of suspended FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend.

Their heartfelt messages, obtained exclusively by The Post, show a deep and widespread anguish about the politicization of the FBI.

“It’s time to stop the FBI from being the enforcer of a political party’s ideology,” says Ernie Tibaldi, a retired agent from San Francisco. “We need to re-establish the FBI as the apolitical and independent law enforcement entity that it always was.”

He expressed gratitude to Friend “for having the courage to stand up to the corruption that has taken over the leadership of the FBI.”

Many former agents hailed Friend, a SWAT team member in Florida, as a “hero” after he was punished for refusing to participate in what he regarded as unnecessarily heavy-handed SWAT raids over Jan. 6 misdemeanors. 

In his whistleblower complaint to the Department of Justice inspector general, Friend alleged that the FBI has been manipulating case-file management in order to falsely inflate the threat of domestic terrorism, and using unconstitutional excessive force against political dissenters.

Whistleblower Stephen Friend was suspended from the FBI for refusing to participate in a raid on Jan. 6 suspects.

‘Moral courage’

Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, describes Friend as “a model example of what FBI agents nationwide should be.”

“Moral courage, leadership in the face of pressure, and true to the Oath of Office FBI agents take to defend the United States Constitution and protect America and its citizens.

“I am beyond proud to offer him my support in the decisions he had to make.”

Five former SWAT team members in Friend’s support group agree that raiding a nonviolent person on a misdemeanor offense was wrong.Anna Friend

Turchie, who led the Unabomber task force, says he didn’t even use a SWAT team in 1996 to arrest Theodore Kaczynski, a violent domestic terrorist who had killed three people and injured 23 others.

“No real FBI agent would defend the position of using SWAT teams to arrest non-violent senior citizens and others with political opinions not currently tolerated by this administration, compounded by the idea that many of these cases involve misdemeanor criminal charges.

“This activity actually generates tension in communities and increases the potential for tragic results and injuries to FBI agents and citizens.” 

Five former SWAT team members in Friend’s support group agree that raiding a nonviolent person on a misdemeanor offense was wrong and potentially dangerous.

“I was involved in numerous arrests where we never used any SWAT teams,” says retired Special Agent David Baldovin, who served from 1969 to 2000, including 25 years in SWAT.

“The current use — or should I say abuse — of bureau SWAT teams has been outrageous.”

Baldovin expressed thanks to Friend “for having the courage to say ‘hell, no’ to the current bunch of FBI bureaucrats and tyrants.”

“They do not exemplify Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity, but you, sir, certainly do … 

“The SWAT colleagues of yours who agree to participate in these police state tactics are doing the same thing as those in Germany who participated in war crimes. ‘Only following orders,’ right?”

Another SWAT member, retired Special Agent Bob Fricke, who served from 1987 to 2008, says: “When I see the FBI using extreme SWAT tactics on elderly and other citizens who pose no physical threat, it makes me sick. It has to be purely political …

“I participated in many searches authorized by legally obtained search warrants … [All] included serious felonies. The only time I recall participating in a pre-dawn raid in which we all wore body armor and needed SWAT team … assistance involved an extremely violent motorcycle gang …

“I believe Special Agent Friend is an American hero. He is a shining example of what I attempt to inculcate in my students, honor above self. 

“The current use — or should I say abuse — of bureau SWAT teams has been outrageous,” says one former special agent.Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Our founding fathers wanted people of high moral character to serve the American people. It is good to know that people such as Special Agent Friend still exist. May God protect him and his family.”

Former Special Agent Brian Shepard, who also served in SWAT, had this message for Friend: “I highly commend your courage! I am standing with you all the way.”

In a 30-year career in law enforcement, SWAT team member Greg Dillon served in the FBI just five years to 1990, before he, too, was forced to become a whistleblower. His book, “The Thin Blue Lie: An Honest Cop vs The FBI,” is a searing account of falsified affidavits, corruption, cover-ups and retaliation.

‘A brave stand’

“I served on SWAT teams in the Alexandria Division and the Washington Field Office. In state service, I served as a supervisor in a Fugitive Unit and later in a Gang Unit. Rarely were SWAT teams used to effect an arrest; those rare circumstances were reserved for career criminals with a history of violence, those known to resist arrest, or suspected of being heavily armed.

“I applaud Steven Friend for adhering to his moral compass and taking a brave stand few are willing to make. Hopefully, his courage will inspire other colleagues to step forward in support.”

Gary Karns, another former SWAT team member, said Friend’s actions were “an act of patriotism. To stand by your principles during these times is the honorable and right thing to do. God Bless you.”

Former Special Agent Dewanna Jackolski was damning about the current state of the bureau: “FBI Agents pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. [We] did not pledge unquestioning loyalty to any supervisor, director, president or political party. 

“The oath does not state that we are to obey orders if those orders are being used to persecute individuals who disagree with the actions and policies of the politicians in power. There comes a time and place where our conscience, morality and humanity demand that we speak out and condemn the actions of this FBI.”

Urey Patrick, a supervisory special agent who served in the FBI from 1973 to 1996, says: “The FBI has mutated over the years. [When I joined, it] was an independent investigative agency essentially devoid of political partisanship, subordinate to but not subservient to the DOJ … Since then, it has inexorably devolved into just another supplicant agency doing the bidding of whatever political regime is in control of the DOJ. 

“I don’t know if that is irreparable or not, but I do know that, if there is to be a restoration of FBI integrity, honor and calling to duty, it will be only because of men and women like you [Friend]. For what it is worth, I am with you … in any way I can be — as are countless others.”

Retired FBI agent Steve Nash kept it short and sweet: “If no one speaks up, evil wins. I support the truth.”

‘A police force for the Dems’

Terry Turchie, the FBI’s first head of counterterrorism, and a retired front-line agent of almost 30 years, feels it is his moral duty to support Friend, and has been contacted by dozens of current and former agents wanting to help.

Serving agents with whom he has been in contact “believe the FBI is wrong to be doing these things, but simply are fearful of speaking up for now.”

Turchie points out that the FBI has a long tradition of whistleblowers. In the past, FBI agents of integrity “did attempt to fight back” to stop the bureau abusing its powers.

Friend alleged that the FBI has been manipulating case-file management in order to falsely inflate the threat of domestic terrorism.Anna Friend

After 9/11, for instance, FBI employees, including the management of the New York Field Office, sounded the alarm over the abuse of national security surveillance powers, warning then-Director Robert Mueller that the bureau “should not be opening counterterrorism investigations based solely and exclusively on National Security Agency intercepts of conversations of US citizens,” says Turchie.

“Mueller rejected that advice.”

In 2013, when Mueller retired, hundreds of FBI employees signed a letter to incoming Director James Comey, warning him about “political bias and political compromise of the FBI,” and saying that Mueller had led the bureau in the “wrong direction … as a result of its transformation from a law enforcement to an intelligence organization.”

Comey did not even acknowledge that he had received the letter and the FBI has continued down the same ill-fated path to this day, with current Director Christopher Wray “doubling down on that course.”

“The FBI has been collapsed into nothing more than a police agency for the Democratic Party,” says Turchie. “Many of us feel that over the decades [we have seen] the complete compromise of the bureau.”

More than 20 FBI whistleblowers have come forward to Republican members of Congress in recent months, and Turchie says those numbers will grow.

The weapons and equipment in the latest aid package will be bought directly from industry on Ukraine’s behalf under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), meaning they are not yet built and could take some time to reach the battlefield.

Items in the $1.1 billion package include:

The announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine in the mid- and long-term, according to the Pentagon. 

“This USAI package underscores the U.S. commitment to continuing to support Ukraine over the long term,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “It represents a multi-year investment in critical capabilities to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces as it continues to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory in the face of Russian aggression.”

The United States has committed $16.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since January 2021. Since 2014, the United States has donated $19 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, of which $16.2 billion was promised or delivered since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on February 24.

HIMARS has undeniably been one of the most impactful weapons the U.S. has donated to Ukraine’s war effort. While the Pentagon cautiously progressed with deliveries at the outset while Ukrainian troops proved they could use the precision weapons effectively, there are now 16 firing precision rockets at Russian positions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov mentioned HIMARS by name when thanking the U.S. government for its latest military assistance.

The wheeled launchers and M270 tracked launchers donated by NATO allies – both of which fire the precision Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, munitions – played a critical opening role in Ukraine’s ongoing dual-pronged offensive in the north around Kharkiv and south around Kherson. Both launch systems also can fire the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which has a 190-mile range. The U.S. has so far declined to provide Ukraine with such a long-range missile capable of striking targets well inside Russia.

A systematic campaign using GMLRS to target Russian ammunition storage and logistics capabilities set conditions for Ukraine’s rapid liberation of vast swathes of occupied territory. The War Zone explained how both launcher types, loaded with the M30/31 rockets, would be used as precision-strike weapons and very effective even in relatively small numbers in this piece.

HIMARS has achieved cult status as it obliterated Russian positions in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian media began spreading the news of more inbound HIMARS systems even before the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

Russia has repeatedly claimed to have destroyed some of Ukraine’s HIMARS launchers, going so far as to chalk up the elimination of more weapons than had even been donated. Knowing Russian forces would seek out and target the HIMARS launchers, Ukrainian forces made mock-ups from plywood to compel the enemy into wasting valuable ammunition.

Introducing another 18 HIMARS will more than double the number of them in Ukraine’s arsenal, although the timeline for achieving this is still unknown. Every wheeled launcher can precisely strike targets within a 43-mile radius of its position. As Ukraine pushes consistently eastward along its two axes of advance, its HIMARS can reach further into Russian-occupied territory.

There have been concerns that U.S. ammunition stockpiles are insufficient to keep Ukrainian forces firing GMLRS while leaving enough for the U.S. military in case of major contingency operations.

Before we get to the details of everything else happening in the fight for Ukraine, take a moment to revisit our rolling coverage of the conflict here.

In addition to detailing what was in the announced $1.1 billion in USAI funding, a senior U.S. defense official said that Ukraine is consolidating the territorial gains it has made in recent weeks of the seven-month-long war. From the other side of the line, Russia is thought to be increasing strikes against civilian targets.

In the Donetsk region, Ukrainian forces have nearly encircled the city of Lyman, according to pro-Russian media sources. The map below shows Russian forces almost surrounded in and around the city, with Ukrainian troops pushing to close the pincer from the north and south in their rear.

The same push to cut off Russian troops in Lyman is reflected in the U.K. Ministry of Defense intelligence assessment map of the conflict for Sept. 28.

Ukraine has pressed its offensive operations in the north-east of the country over the last few days, the U.K. MoD said in its latest intelligence assessment of the conflict.

“Units are making slow advances on at least two axes east from the line of the Oskil and Siverskyy Donets rivers, where forces had consolidated following their previous advance earlier in the month,” the U.K. MoD said. “Russia is mounting a more substantive defense than previously, likely because the Ukrainian advance now threatens parts of Luhansk Oblast as voting in the referendum on accession to the Russian Federation closes. Heavy fighting also continues in the Kherson region where the Russian force on the right bank of the Dnipro remains vulnerable.”

The specter of nuclear weapons continues to loom larger over the conflict in Ukraine. NATO is clearly taking the threats more seriously than they had been, while it seems that Putin has chosen the troop surge route instead, at least for now.

In Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces continue to put abandoned Russian vehicles and equipment to good use. In the video below, a Ukrainian crew tows a captured Russian Msta-B 152mm howitzer with a captured Russian T-80 main battle tank, according to the Ukrainian MoD.

It appears that was not the only Russian T-80 tank Ukrainian forces were able to capture in working order during their Kharkiv offensive.

More Western-donated vehicles are on their way to Ukraine, including the LAV 6.0 troop carrier recently seen in Germany. The vehicle is part of a $500 million aid package from Canada.

Ukraine still has an insatiable appetite for artillery and has made do with any weapons at its disposal, including an apparent museum piece. A Soviet-era M240 240mm mortar, a type that entered service in 1950, was recently seen in Ukrainian service. While the weapon is not known to be in Ukrainian inventories, one was displayed in a Kyiv museum before the war.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda piled on with other Western leaders in denouncing the referendums Russia recently orchestrated in occupied territories of Ukraine. He called the votes – which unrealistically nearly unanimously favor of Russian annexation – as “desperate attempts by Russia to annex Ukrainian territory.”  

Nevertheless, the Russia-installed leaders of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblasts were flown to Moscow in the wake of the highly suspect votes.

The quality of firearms training for those that are lucky enough to get any is also suspect. The photo below appears to show a Russian shooting skills instructor holding the palm of his right hand over the muzzle of a trainee’s AK pattern rifle. The move is an egregious safety violation even if the weapon is unloaded.

Near Lyman, a Russian vehicle was seen with its turret draped in damaged body armor meant to protect humans. The weathered vests seem to have provided little protection to the vehicle and certainly did no good for whomever they were issued to.

At worst, Russian military leaders are aware that conscripted soldiers have little chance against a hardened Ukrainian military that already has succeeded against Russia’s professional soldiers. In at least one instance, Russian officers appear to have stated this fact to a group of recruits, calling them “cannon fodder” and “meat” to be sent into combat, as reported by Russian independent media outlet Meduza.

The War Zone broke the news today that Russia has closed off Sevastopol harbor, home of its Black Sea Fleet, likely in response to the appearance of Ukrainian “suicide” drone boats and other threats as Ukraine ramps up operations around Crimea.

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante on Wednesday chaired the first meeting of the National Armaments Directors (NADs) from member nations of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) in Brussels, Belgium.  He was joined by defense industry leaders and representatives from 45 countries, the European Union, and NATO, according to a statement from the Defense Department.

“The forum enabled frank and open dialogue about defense industrial base challenges and opportunities to increase production of capabilities critical to Ukraine’s long-term defense,” according to DoD spokesperson Jessica Maxwell.

“The U.S. delegation outlined the Department’s analytical approach to identifying supply-chain constraints for major components and sub-components and plans to increase production of ground-based long-range fires, air defense systems, air-to-ground munitions, and other capabilities. Nearly 20 international partners briefed similar efforts to strengthen and expand their nations’ industrial base to accelerate production, spurring productive dialogue on areas for multi-national coordination.” 

We will continue to update this post until we state otherwise.

Contact the author: Dan@thewarzone.com