There’s often a décalage – a mismatch – between the British and French leaders of the day, says Robert Zaretsky in Politico. The “affable and agreeable” Harold Macmillan was paired with the “arrogant and confrontational” Charles de Gaulle; the “unturnable” Margaret Thatcher with the more cooperative François Mitterrand. But with Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron, the fit seems “as tight as the tailored skinny blue suits” they favour. Both are the products of elite education: in Sunak’s case, Winchester and Oxford; for Macron, the Lycée Henri IV and École Nationale d’Administration. And both are the youngest leaders in their nation’s postwar history: Sunak is 42, and Macron was 39 when he became president in 2017.

As Russia’s lacklustre military performance in Ukraine drags on, Putin’s cheerleaders have settled on an age-old explanation, says Owen Matthews on the Battleground: Ukraine podcast: “the good tsar and the bad advisers”. Loyalists like Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group, have criticised Russia’s generals, and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, for their shoddy strategy. No one has yet dared criticise Putin himself for his army’s failures.