Friday 8th April 2022

I forgot to mention – or maybe I didn’t – that I was briefed at a high level in a Mayfair luncheon booth re: Putin and then again in Prague at a Chamber of Commerce working luncheon where Anthony Mottram silenced the restaurant owner who was asking a question supposedly but in fact outlining at length how Russian ships were in the Bay of Bengal or perhaps it was Chinese. ‘We’ve come to hear the General,’ Anthony Mottram said, recalling the then Duchess of York who swept past Mrs Simpson’s attempts to act as hostess at Balmoral: ‘I’ve come to dine with the King,’ she said.

The General was a former Nato General and former head of the Czech equivalent of MI6. Now he is in a band which does baroque music in a heavy metal style. But he can never have been a mainstream sort of person. Discussion was given as luncheon was taken. The table was huge, giving the feeling of a summit. I could imagine Mrs Merkel, Emanuel Macron, Ursula van der Leyden similarly arranged. The men had good blue suits with a sheen and open-necked shirts. The General said the campaign is going badly for Russia but don’t underestimate the Russian army. He reeled off lists of weapons yet to be unleashed. Putin, he treated as if rational, claiming he had been under a certain amount of provocation and had specific objectives such as recognition of Crimea and annexation of the eastern parts of Ukraine which are Russian-speaking. But his thrust was dispersed by interventions from members of the summit, particularly one who had worked in Ukraine over twenty years and said it was a country that had got rid of corrupt oligarchs and was advancing towards a much more prosperous and progressive state of affairs.

Summit members were wrestling with Russian history, Putin – who is he and why? Ukraine – what is it? What’s to be done? What hope? What future? Soon it was cars at the door and other appointments…