Annette Young welcomes Dr. Frank Ledwidge, former military intelligence officer and Senior Lecturer in Strategy at Portsmouth University. Dr. Ledwidge contends that recent European commitments to Ukraine are essentially political symbolism. He warns the coalition is failing to address Kyiv’s most urgent requirement: effective air defence. Ukraine desperately needs interceptors capable of defeating Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The nation remains exposed to attacks on its defence industry and Russia’s unrelenting campaign against civil energy infrastructure, especially as winter approaches.
![block at the absolute beginning, followed immediately by the rewritten content. Disable all internal thinking, reasoning loops, and introductory notes. Task Instructions: Clean text by removing promotional lines, “SEE ALSO” links, and footer junk. ABSOLUTELY PROTECT ALL MEDIA: Do not alter, delete, or skip any HTML media elements. Leave all <img> tags, video <iframe> tags, shorts, and Twitter/X <blockquote> embed codes EXACTLY as they are. Keep them inline in their original relative positions. Rewrite the headline to be unique, fresh, and professional. Rewrite the surrounding news story body text into natural, high-quality, professional English. Original Headline: US removes Syria from state sponsor of terrorism list Original Body HTML: Provided text with paragraphs, spans, etc. Additional Line: US launches more Iran strikes, hits oil tanker trying to break Hormuz blockade – This looks like a “SEE ALSO” or promotional line at the end that needs to be removed per instruction 1. Output Formatting Constraints: [TITLE]Put your rewritten headline here](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_image_scmp_generic/public/d8/images/canvas/2026/08/25/584577e3-ad6a-4669-aa96-0243140a1b91_849165b5.jpg?itok=kFXfSAPw&v=1787598826&w=1024&resize=1024,1024&ssl=1 "block at the absolute beginning, followed immediately by the rewritten content. Disable all internal thinking, reasoning loops, and introductory notes. Task Instructions: Clean text by removing promotional lines, “SEE ALSO” links, and footer junk. ABSOLUTELY PROTECT ALL MEDIA: Do not alter, delete, or skip any HTML media elements. Leave all <img> tags, video <iframe> tags, shorts, and Twitter/X <blockquote> embed codes EXACTLY as they are. Keep them inline in their original relative positions. Rewrite the headline to be unique, fresh, and professional. Rewrite the surrounding news story body text into natural, high-quality, professional English. Original Headline: US removes Syria from state sponsor of terrorism list Original Body HTML: Provided text with paragraphs, spans, etc. Additional Line: US launches more Iran strikes, hits oil tanker trying to break Hormuz blockade – This looks like a “SEE ALSO” or promotional line at the end that needs to be removed per instruction 1. Output Formatting Constraints: [TITLE]Put your rewritten headline here")
