This Us-russia relations ‘thriller’ awaits its final act
Do you remember the mural of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump from last year? Daubed on the wall of a fast-food outlet in Vilnius, Lithuania, it depicted the two presidents in a passionate clinch. But how close are they in real life? Every journalist in the West (plus some braver ones in the East) is looking for the smoking gun which will prove the relationship is more than a lurid geopolitical punchline.
In Trump and Russia: Sex, Spies and Scandal (Channel 4), reporter Matt Frei hunted in every nook and cranny. But despite the promise of sensation (“our story is a thriller”), underscored by a spy-movie soundtrack, this edition of Dispatches amounted to nothing more than a summary of what we know so far.
There were plenty of journalists, spooks and henchmen from both sides of the aisle who were available for comment. But as Frei carried on digging, the list of interviewees took on the distinct whiff of D-list.
Thus Christopher Steele, the former British MI6 agent, whose dossier suggested the Russians have compromising material on Trump, wouldn’t talk, but an old chum of his would. Is his life in danger?, wondered Frei, almost hopefully. “Anyone can have nightmares,” parried the old chum. “So that’s a yes then?” All a bit desperate?
Frei grilled Roger Stone, a Republican lobbyist who kept using the term “trumped up” with no apparent ear for irony. Why did Stone’s pal Paul Manafort, previously a fixer for shady demagogues, run Trump’s campaign for free? “Because he loves the game,” said Stone with a poker face. “Come on!” hollered Frei, all but throwing his arms up.
The nadir was a Moscow street encounter with a woman whose English wasn’t up to trading tittletattle about Trump and prostitutes. Even Hillary Clinton, the top-of-the-bill guest cordially shown to her interviewee’s chair by Frei, was reduced to a brief soundbite about Russian interference in the US election – the same one she’s been peddling on the book-tour circuit all month.
This was a garishly watchable primer for anyone not up to speed with the subject. The main revelation was that Putin encourages his aides to study the Netflix series House of Cards for tips on Washington realpolitik. Thanks to Trump, as a primer it’s now hopelessly behind the curve. This thriller still awaits its final act.
It’s complicated being the model of a modern British soldier. “Be charming to every single person we work with,” explained Captain Tom Legge of 4 Rifles. “But always have a plan to kill them.” Fly-on-the-wall documentaries about the British Army in Afghanistan had become a regular TV schedule staple. Army: Behind the
New Frontlines (BBC Two) is a sort of sequel, explaining what our boys did next (no female soldiers were featured in this first episode).
First stop: Iraq, where the Army is training and supporting Iraqis to take on a new kind of enemy. Variously referred to as “Dash” and “Daysh” by the British soldiers, the so-called Islamic State’s disdain for life is a headscratcher for a conventional army. Petrifying footage showed vehicle-borne IED attacks in which suicide bombers drove Ford trucks customised like extras from the Mad Max films. Another clip showed a young man with a sweet smile exulting when, drawing lots, he earned the chance to drive one.
As ever, the Army have certainly got the charm side of things covered. Lieutenant Jamie Robertson, blue-eyed with a cherubic blond parting, diplomatically explained the tricky business of training recruits whose
A K 47s are on loan to someone at the front. There was something poignant about grown men on exercise holding pretend guns. Watching them go off to Mosul, said Robertson, was “like sending your children off to school”.
This story of military impotence stirred echoes of the British experience of keeping the peace in Bosnia in the early Nineties. An even older campaign was evoked in the presence of Major General Rupert Jones, the senior British soldier in Iraq whose father, “H” Jones, died gallantly in the Falklands 35 years ago. “I quite regularly in my professional career refer to him,” said Jones, “and imagine what he might have done in a set of circumstances.”
As ever with programmes organised via the Ministry of Defence, there was an aura of media management. The Iraqis exercised their own version of editorial control. Ibrahim Daeb, the impressive commander of the Green Eagles regiment, was asked how his many relatives and friends had died in Mosul. He paused and said, “No, let’s leave it.”
Trump and Russia: Sex, Spies and Scandal ★★★
Army: Behind the New Frontlines ★★★