in the battle for ukraine. now on bbc news, unspun world withjohn simpson. hello, and thanks forjoining me. we re at the bbc s headquarters in london, broadcasting house. and here s the statue of the bbc s patron saint, george orwell, complete with cigarette. he used to work here. beside him is his famous quote. if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. well, i hope we can persuade you to hear this edition of unspun world, anyway. has germany s influence in the world shrunk? germany has been very slow, very reluctant to react when it comes to sanctions against russia. what effect will the shooting of the palestinian journalist shireen abu aqla have on the politics of israel? this has been an extremely violent period. certainly, these are extremely testing times for israel s leaders. and will president biden s lifting of some controls over cuba actually help the people of the island? i think the desire to leave is mor
germany has been very slow, very reluctant to react when it comes to sanctions against russia. what effect will the shooting of the palestinian journalist shireen abu aqla have on the politics of israel? this has been an extremely violent period. certainly this is extremely testing times for israel s leaders. and will president biden s lifting of some controls over cuba actually help the people of the island? i think the desire to leave is more acute than it has been in decades. russia s invasion of ukraine has had all sorts of entirely unintended consequences. in the eu for instance, it s shaken up the traditional partnership between france and germany, and damaged germany s leading role in europe. while the ukrainian government never recovered its faith in germany, the ukrainian army within 48 hours. i asked katya adler, our europe editor who is in brussels for her thoughts on the way the war in ukraine has altered things in europe. we ve been seeing a whole shift in allian
but, yes, its reputation has been damaged, and olaf scholz is not seen as a leader. enter emmanuel macron, just re elected french president. he thinks now is his time. he already had so many ideas about reforming the eu, and angela merkel pretty much sat on him and his ideas. one of the ideas that s really now taken off, john, was his idea that the eu needs to be more sovereign, if you like, be able to stand more on its own feet. but the one thing that the european union hasn t had is a real military force, has it? and if you go to ukraine, for instance, as i have recently, you find that there s quite a lot of contempt for the eu, particularly for germany, but also not very much admiration for france either. we are not realistically talking about a massive eu army here. it makes sense to kind of look at the number of jets,
just re elected french president. he thinks now is his time. he already had so many ideas about reforming the european union, and angela merkel pretty much sat on him and his ideas. one of the ideas that s really now taken off, john, was his idea that the eu needs to be more sovereign, if you like, be able to stand more in its own feet. but the one thing that the european union hasn t had is a real military force, has it? and if you go to ukraine, for instance, as i have recently, you find that there s quite a lot of contempt for the eu, particularly for germany, but also not very much admiration for france either. we are not realistically talking about a massive eu army here. it makes sense to kind of look at a number ofjets, look at armoured vehicles and sort of pool resources together in order to be able to act. i think what russia s invasion of ukraine has done is remind the eu and remind emmanuel macron
consolidated. it s for these reasons that ukraine believes the coming fight, the coming battles are going to be very difficult. phil, just yesterday boris johnson made a surprise visit to kyiv, a city that recently had been in the shadow of russian forces. tell us about that visit. reporter: president zelenskyy has been full of praise for boris johnson for making that visit. firstly, for the symbolism of it. but he was full of praise for johnson and everything the british government has done up until now. all the decisions it made in recent weeks. in terms of the military support it providedably on sanctions. the uk promised to prove away from russian coal quickly. the uk has gone a step further. it promised to give up russian oil by the end of the year. this is something that the european union hasn t been able to match, not yet. it s talking about it.