When Russia invaded Ukraine early this year, I fully expected Joe Biden, the man who, by his abandonment of Afghanistan, executed the most shameful scuttle in American history, to emulate the response of his predecessor Barak Obama, to Russia’s 2014 capture of Crimea – plenty of orotundly-phrased rhetoric, perhaps a bit of limp-wristed, largely cosmetic sanctionising, but no real support for Ukraine. I imagine Vladimir Putin had similar expectations.

We’ve both been wrong. 2022 has seen a massive commitment of financial and military resources by the USA for Ukraine. What can have brought about this radical transformation of the ‘little American’ who abandoned an army’s worth of kit and several thousand Afghani collaborators and their families to be picked up by the Taleban, into the globalist hawk that today inhabits the White House, making a seemingly open-ended commitment to Ukrainian victory?

Of course, it’s possible that the Biden administration has been provoked sufficiently by the boiling-frog accumulation of Putin adventurism that they have, in a fit of adulthood, correctly perceived that a Russian victory over Ukraine would threaten future world stability more than backing Ukraine today in a successful defence. But the truth may be simpler, and reflect less credit on Biden and his minders.

When Hunter Biden’s laptop fell into the hands of a Delaware computer shop, its contents included salacious imagery which reveal Hunter to be a fun-loving chap, leading a colourful private life. This was used by the social media platforms as an excuse for subjecting the story to algorithmic censorship, and by the left-leaning media as an excuse for basically ignoring it.

So, many can be excused for not knowing that the laptop also contained entirely plausible, and since verified, evidence of an energy deal done by Hunter with corrupt Ukrainians to supply access to his father, in exchange for a $50,000 a month retainer.

Now if Hunter’s laptop has evidence of such a deal, it’s odds-on that a similar body of evidence exists, too, within Ukraine. So far, to my knowledge, no one in the Ukrainian government has yet popped up to say ‘It’s true, folks!’, but it would be a mistake to think that Ukrainian corruption in 2015 is a matter Zelensky is anxious to hide. So, it’s surely not too cynical to imagine that Kiev’s silence may be conditional on continued American military support. Talk about Noble Cause Corruption!

Following the acquisition by Elon Musk of Twitter, its secrets are being divulged in daily gobbets. The world can now see the shocking extent to which it colluded with the FBI, among others, to inhibit the dissemination of any material damaging to the electoral prospects of Joe Biden. Prominent in that voluminous category, of course, is the Hunter Biden laptop story, which received the full digital censorship treatment. Through gritted teeth, the bien pensant media are beginning to cover the cover-up. I suppose it’s just possible that Volodymyr Zelensky might be worried about the rapidity with which this occurs, since it will tend to kill his hostage.

In any event, let’s hope the practice of doing the right thing is habit-forming for the American establishment, and survives the evaporation of whatever threat may have brought it about.

Slava Ukraini!