Emergency slides are installed on planes to save lives – but they deploy with such force that they could take one away.

This fact is never lost on cabin crew, with former flight attendant Jay Roberts revealing to MailOnline Travel that accidentally activating an emergency slide ‘is a mistake that flight attendants and airport staff worldwide dread, causing so much anxiety we have nightmares about doing it’.

Jay, who has worked as senior cabin crew for Emirates and who runs the popular Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge network, said: ‘Even with several checks and balances involving more than one person to ensure the slides don’t open accidentally, mishaps still happen, and at larger airlines, they happen several times a year and cost airlines tens of thousands to repack. In addition to being costly and causing great embarrassment among colleagues, being known as that crew who “blew a slide”, the mistake poses a real danger to safety.

‘No matter its size, a plane must be able to be evacuated in 90 seconds or less. Every second counts, which is why the emergency slides deploy with enough pressure to go fully inflated in a matter of seconds. 

‘That force can cause a deadly blow to someone standing in its way and not expecting its deployment.

‘While I don’t know of an incident where someone has died due to being crushed by a slide, there have been times when it came close. In 2013, Asiana Flight 214 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport in California. The impact force caused two of the eight slides to inflight inwards trapping two flight attendants at their stations beside the exits. One of the flight attendants was reported to be choking to death from the pressure and was saved by the quick action of a senior crew member who used a cabin emergency axe to deflate the side.

‘Due to this safety risk, most modern aircraft exit slides are designed to disarm automatically when opened from the outside. 

‘What’s more, whether the airline’s procedure calls for the door to be opened by the ground staff outside the plane or the flight attendants, all airlines will have a slide-disarming process at the end of every flight to minimize the risk of accidental slide deployment. When you pull into the gate, you will always hear an announcement like “cabin crew prepare for arrival and stand by for all call”.

‘After this PA, the crew are released from their jumpseats and they disarm their doors. If they are on a plane large enough to have other crew stations, they will visually or physically check that their colleagues in the neighbouring station have also disarmed their door.

‘On modern aircraft, the lead flight attendant will check a screen at the forward left side door to see if the slide status has changed from armed to disarmed. That crew member will then call all the flight attendant stations to recheck the slides verbally.

‘Each crew member will say their station location followed by the confirmation “disarmed and crosschecked”. Then the lead crew member will announce: “Clear to open doors.”

‘Following this, the crew member will still follow strict procedures to begin the opening process. You could not open the door at my former airline without a senior crew member called “the checker” behind you. You would look at the disarming lever and confirm it was disarmed with the words “door disarmed”. The checker would then reconfirm, saying, “Door disarmed – you are clear to open.” This was followed by slowly opening the door while watching for warning lights to indicate the door was still attached to the arming mechanism.’

Jay revealed that in addition, ground staff are trained on disarming the doors from the outside, with the most essential step being to ‘step to the side or back as the door opens in case the slide inflates’.

Jay said: ‘At my previous airline, the ground staff would give a thumbs up to the crew through the window, indicating it was safe to open the door, then they would step back and wait for us to open, giving themselves an escape in case the slide blew out of its hold.’

The former flight attendant remarked that even with all these procedures in place – ‘accidents happen’.

He continued: ‘When you see photos or videos of slides deployed in the media, they are most commonly a result of crew oversights, older aircraft with manual disarming procedures, equipment malfunctions, or a passenger opening the exits on the ground.

‘In my experience, inadvertent slide deployment was often caused by crew fatigue. For example, at my former airline, we operated many long night flights, and it was the airline’s procedure that all doors were to be opened by the crew when they were on board. Generally, the slide deployments happened after these night flights.

‘I remember one incident where the junior crew member disarmed their door, walked to the opposite exit to check their colleague had disarmed their door, came back to their exit, which had been verified by a checker to be disarmed, opened the arming lever guard and rearmed the door, ignored the warning lights that activate as you start to open the door in the armed mode, and blew the slide on opening.

‘The result of a slide activation on passengers is often a long delay or flight cancellation. If the aircraft was operating an active flight, a new slide must be attached, which can take time to source and install. If one is unavailable, the aircraft can still operate. However, procedures typically require passengers to be moved from that area around the inoperative door, and if the flight is full, the number of passengers has to be reduced, meaning you could be kicked off the flight.

‘Emergency slides are vital to commercial aviation and save thousands of lives annually. They are highly respected safety tools, and for those that get the rare chance to use them, the incident is an occurrence that goes down in their career history books and often goes on to become an airline legend. Aviation safety is a system based on trial and error, with each incident being used as a case study to learn and improve from. Each slide activation is investigated, and the data is used to form better procedures and airplane components to protect profits and people better.’

For more from Jay visit www.instagram.com/aflyguytravels and www.facebook.com/aflyguyslounge.

Manchester United ‘fear Dean Henderson could FAIL medical and re-injure himself’ if Nottingham Forest push for transfer, with club planning to delay move until goalkeeper is fitter as he recovers from torn thigh

• Dean Henderson was on loan at Nottingham Forest last season but got injured
• He tore thigh muscle and has still not fully recovered from the set-back
• Move to Forest might have to wait until closer to the end of the transfer window 

By Will Griffee For Mailonline

Updated: 02:25 EDT, 9 August 2023

When Ceri Griffiths was offered IVF add-ons, the 37-year-old accepted, hoping it would massively boost her odds of having a baby.

But, instead of the family she so desperately craved, the restaurant owner was left with nothing but heartache.

Now Ceri, who suffered three miscarriages through her exhausting 10-year fertility struggles, fears she has ‘wasted’ her first round of collected eggs. 

Although Ceri’s four add-ons — none of which are proven to work — were paid for entirely by the NHS, other women are not as fortunate. For example, had Ceri, from Wales, gone private, undergoing the same procedures could have cost her upwards of £10,000.

Some couples longing for a kid have told of their regret at spending their life savings on fertility treatment and the handful of extras offered.

Discussing the devastation of repeatedly going through the trauma of a failed pregnancy, Ceri told MailOnline: ‘Every time you do it, it gets harder and harder. It chips away at you.

‘It’s been really hard. It’s been really hard for my husband (Oliver) as well. If anything, it’s made us stronger together. And he’s so supportive. I think it’s affected his mental health just as much as mine.’

One add-on given to Ceri during her nine rounds of IVF was an ‘endometrial scratch’. 

Like the name suggests, doctors physically scratch the lining of the womb, which apparently releases chemicals that make it more receptive to an embryo.

Yet this is marked as ‘amber’ by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulator, meaning there is little evidence to show it boosts the chance of pregnancy.

Five add-ons fall under this category. Ceri was given four of them, some of which were carried out repeatedly. 

Yet she claims that not one doctor explained how the add-ons had ‘conflicting’ evidence around the odds of it actually helping. 

Discussing her experience of scratching, Ceri said: ‘The hospital staff were lovely, but the procedure was horrible.

‘They just suggested I should have it done. They said the theory is that it encourages blood flow to the area to encourage a healthy womb. That is all they said.

‘Only after doing my own research in the last month or two did I know there was no evidence.’

After losing her fallopian tubes due to a blockage at just 23, Ceri was aware that it would be impossible to get pregnant naturally.  

It meant IVF was her only option because eggs are fertilised out of the body and implanted into the womb — replacing the role of the fallopian tubes. 

In 2013, Ceri, who at the time lived in Lincolnshire, had her first round of IVF through Care Fertility Nottingham, paid for by local health chiefs. 

After just one round, complications started to hamper the couple’s dreams of having a baby.

Ceri, 29 at the time, was diagnosed with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). It can cause women’s ovaries to expand dangerously. In severe cases, victims can be left fighting to breathe with blood clots in their lungs.

Ceri’s first round ended in a chemical pregnancy, a miscarriage that happens within the first five weeks. An embryo forms but then stops developing — it can happen so early that many do not even notice it.

After a failed second attempt in Nottingham, the pair started to struggled mentally with the fear of never being able to have a family of their own. 

Ceri and Oliver moved to Wales in 2014 for a job at a caravan park and so was referred to a closer clinic — the Hewitt Fertility Centre at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

She had another seven rounds with three other add-ons: elective freeze-all cycles and time-lapse imaging, artificial egg activation and embryo glue. 

Between them, they claim to help select only healthy eggs, promote hormone production and reduce disruptions to development in a bid to increase the odds of pregnancy. 

Yet none of her attempts were successful. At the Liverpool centre, Ceri endured two miscarriages — one at six weeks and another at eight weeks.  

She says she was never told about the HFEA’s traffic light system and the practice of providing people with add-ons is taking advantage of vulnerable families wanting to have a child.

‘It’s all a money-making scam if you ask me’, she added,

‘It has been incredibly hard. I feel angry, and I feel let down.’

Now she is making a formal complaint against the NHS after she says it allowed her to ‘go through all her eggs without ever referring her to a reoccurring miscarriage clinic for further testing’.

She believes the add-ons gave her a false sense of security and by not seeing a specialist, her eggs were ‘wasted’.

As Ceri’s biological clock is ticking, she is desperately trying to find the funding for another chance with a specialist.

She says she needs to scramble to find at least £12,000 for a fresh cycle to collect more eggs. 

She wants to freeze any left over embryos developed with the eggs for future use with a miscarriage specialist. 

Thousands of Brits go through a similar emotional rollercoaster every year as one in seven couples face difficulties conceiving.

Around 53,000 Brits went through the draining process of IVF in 2019, according to the HFEA.

A trust spokesperson for Liverpool Women’s Hospital said: ‘We would like to apologise for the upset caused to the patient as a result of their experience. 

‘We have reached out to the patient to allow us to look into this further to better understand the issues and identify where we could have done better.’

Desperate family and friends of the five missing on the Titan submarine fear they are ‘losing time’ after ‘banging’ noises were picked up by sonar devices – but experts warn the crew has just 24 hours of breathable air left.

Rescue teams are racing against the clock three days after the deep-sea vessel disappeared near the wreck of the Titanic.

Loud banging noises had last night been detected in the search area, the US Coast Guard confirmed, but it added that initial attempts to locate the sub using underwater equipment had ‘yielded negative results’.

Nevertheless it sparked fresh hopes that the passengers onboard were alive and could be hitting the side of the craft with cups in a frantic attempt to be detected on sonar.

But at 12,500ft – nearly two-and-a-half miles – below the surface, there are possibly just two vessels on Earth capable of rescuing them.

Last night the US Coast Guard estimated the 22ft long OceanGate Expeditions vessel had just over 40 hours of oxygen left.

The five onboard, which includes British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, remain in the dark depths of the Atlantic, which experts have likened to ‘being in space’.

Shahzada Dawood, 48, his son Suleman, 19, OceanGate’s chief executive and founder Stockton Rush and French submersible pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet, are also stuck inside. 

Above the surface of the wreck five vessels remain on standby helping the frantic search efforts – with four more from the US Coast Guard on their way, including one boat filled with medical personnel, according to marine tracking data.

In a heartbreaking plea this morning, one of Mr Harding’s close friends Jannicke Mikkelsen warned ‘we are losing time’.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I’m nervous. I’m sick to my stomach with nerves. I’m terrified, I’m anxious. I’m not sleeping at the moment. I’m just hoping for good news. Every single second, every single minute feels like hours.’

Colonel Terry Virts, another friend who dubbed Mr Harding ‘the quintessential British explorer’, also stressed that ‘the clock is ticking’ to find the five onboard.

Meanwhile retired British navy rear admiral Chris Parry told LBC that hopes of finding the missing deep-sea vessel without an ’emitting signal’ will be ‘impossible’ to find in the timescale. 

It comes as:

• It emerged that OceanGate refused to put Titan through an independent inspection process;
• Machinery was flown into a Canadian airport to help with the ‘last chance’ rescue;
• And a friend of Mr Harding said he pulled out of the mission due to ‘safety concerns. 

Admiral Parry said: ‘I’m afraid the odds are vanishingly small. Obviously, we want to remain hopeful and optimistic but there are two problems here – one is actually finding the thing and secondly is how on earth are you going to get it off the seabed? 

‘It’s never been done before and I don’t think anybody’s got any ideas about how to do it at the moment.’ 

Scientist Dr Michael Guillen, who ‘almost died’ when visiting the Titanic wreck in 2000, said that the trapped crew could be using cups to bang on the side of the sub to communicate.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘If their hydrophone failed so early in the mission, less than two hours down which means they never made it to the bottom, the very least they could take their cups and bang it on the side of the sub.

‘That’s what I would do if I were down there and I am sure that’s what the pilot will be telling everybody.

‘They have five people, they can make quite a racket by just banging on the side as sound communicates extremely well in water.’

Dr Guillen added that when he heard the news it gave him ‘great hope that perhaps they’re still alive’.

Another friend of the British billionaire Chris Brown revealed he pulled out of the doomed voyage after becoming concerned about the quality of the technology and materials used in the vessel. 

The 61-year-old, who is also an explorer, told BBC Breakfast of the banging sounds: ‘That is just the sort of thing I would have expected Hamish to come up with.’

‘There’s always hope. As an explorer, you never give up anyway,’ he added.

The sounds, heard at 30-minute intervals, could be coming from those trapped within the submarine intensely banging on the vessel’s hull in order to be picked up by a sonar.

Sonobuoys in the ocean listen to sounds before transmitting the sonar sound energy – this most commonly referred to as a ‘ping’ that notifies the buoys at the surface. 

Rear Admiral John Mauger, who is helping coordinate the search, said yesterday that the submarine it could be stuck.

‘We don’t have equipment onsite that can do a survey of the bottom,’ he said.

‘There is a lot of debris, so locating it will be difficult. Right now, we’re focused on trying to locate it.’

Titan stopped transmitting signals on Sunday. It is supposed to send a sonar ‘ping’ (radar and GPS not functioning underwater) to mothership Polar Prince every 15 minutes, but the last one was at 9.45am – an hour and 45 minutes into the dive as it was floating right above the Titanic.

Speaking of the conditions in the depths of the ocean, Admiral Parry added: ‘It’s utterly dark down there, and you have also got a lot of mud and other stuff getting swept up. You can only see about 20ft in front of you with searchlights. There are very strong ocean currents which are pushing you along.’

Colonel Virts, a former commander of the International Space Station, told the Today programme he believes if the group ‘can be rescued they will be because of the amount of effort being put in’.

He added: ‘They’re in a tough situation and the clock is ticking. According to the company and submarines spec, by Thursday they will be out of oxygen.

‘So hopefully we get them up soon as the clock is ticking.’ 

‘The water is very deep – two miles plus. It’s like a visit to another planet. It is a sunless, cold environment and high pressure.’

Last night, search equipment was seen being loaded onto the Horizon Arctic to help with the frantic search, hours after the Canadian aircraft first detected the noises.

The bangs were first noted in an email exchange with the US Department of Homeland security – seen by Rolling Stone – but was later confirmed Coast Guard officials.

They said underwater noises were heard by a plane and operations were ‘relocated’ to determine the origin. As of early today, they have ‘yielded negative results’.

The memo, while did not reveal the timing or cause of the noises, read: ‘CC Halifax launched a P8, Poseidon, which has underwater detection capabilities from the air. 

It added that the aircraft had ‘reported a contact in a position close to the distress position’. ‘The P8 heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard.’

Rescue crews will now analyse the data further to help form a search plan into the deep Atlantic Ocean. 

As the search continues, OceanGate has continued to come under fire, with Admiral Parry slamming the company this morning claiming the submarine trip was ‘fundamentally dangerous’ and had ‘no back-up plan’. 

‘Why on earth you would go in a dodgy piece of technology where you actually have to sign away any right to sue the company for emotional damage, injury or death is beyond me’, he added.

‘It is fundamentally dangerous, there was no back-up plan, it’s experimental and I’m afraid to say there’s an element of hubris if you want to go down and do that.’ 

But a businessman who has previously made the deep-sea voyage to the wreck of the Titanic said he had confidence in the crews, adding ‘there’s a very good chance they will be found.’

Oisin Fanning told the BBC: ‘The two guys on the sub currently, so Paul and Stockton, are both consummate professionals.

‘I mean, to be honest, if I was in trouble, I’d want to be on a sub with them.’ 

Richard Garriott de Cayeux, president of The Explorers Club, said last night that ‘there is cause for hope.’

He said in a statement: ‘We have much greater confidence that 1) There is cause for hope, based on data from the field – we understand that likely signs of life have been detected at the site.’ 

Mr Garriott de Cayeux said he believed US Coast Guard was ‘doing everything possible with all resources they have’.

Mr Harding is a founding member of the board of trustees for The Explorers Club. 

The group said they have a direct lines to Congress, the Coast Guard, Air Force and Navy as well as the White House. 

If the mini-sub lost power, with no working propellers, lights or heating, its five passengers will be in total darkness in temperatures of around 3C (37F) as the craft rolls along the seabed.

Oceanographer Mr Gallo said: ‘Where is it? Is it on the bottom, is it floating, is it mid-water? That is something that has not been determined yet.’

For some reason, OceanGate Expeditions, the company that runs the tours of the Titanic, took eight hours to call the coastguard on Sunday. It was reported at 5.40pm, and Canada’s Coastguard was alerted even later, at 9.13pm.

OceanGate, which started dives to the Titanic in 2021, is now facing questions after it emerged the Titan previously suffered electrical damage and had to be rebuilt to withstand the deep seas.

The Titanic wreckage lies at 12,500ft, and Titan was one of the only craft in the world capable of reaching it. Even nuclear submarines cannot safely go that far down. Dive specialists are assisting in the ‘unique and challenging’ operation, said Captain Jamie Frederick from the US Coast Guard.

Standing on a dockside, he told reporters: ‘Getting salvage equipment on scene is a top priority. It is very heavy equipment, it is very complex, but the best experts are on scene. If the sub is located, the experts will look at the best course of action for recovering the sub.’

Among the equipment is a decompression chamber for the five passengers should they be brought to the surface.

Last night friend of Mr Harding, Mr Brown, also a thrill seeker who intended to join the group on the missing Titanic sub pulled out of the dive because he thought OceanGate was ‘cutting too many corners’, it has emerged.

He paid the deposit to go on the doomed voyage but said he changed his mind after becoming concerned by the quality of technology and materials used in the vessel, The Sun reported last night. 

Among his concerns were OceanGate’s use of ‘old scaffolding poles’ for the ballast and the fact that its controls were ‘based on computer game-style controllers’.

He told the newspaper that despite being ‘one of the first people to sign up for this trip’, he ultimately decided the ‘risks were too high’.

Mr Brown added he felt ‘really upset about Hamish’, who is among the five passengers on the submersible.

Mr Brown and Mr Harding signed up for the voyage after sharing a ‘few beers’ while holidaying on Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island.

The pair paid the 10 per cent deposit for the trip, which has since more than doubled in price, while the Titan vessel was still being developed, he claimed.

But Mr Brown alleged that in the years that followed, he learned OceanGate had ‘missed key targets’ when depth-testing the submersible.

The multi-millionaire digital marketing tycoon found it concerning that the vessel was controlled by a modified Playstation controller.

He also is understood to have been worried by the technical issues and delays throughout the development process.

He told The Sun: ‘I found out they used old scaffolding poles for the sub’s ballast.

‘If you’re trying to build your own submarine you could probably use old scaffold poles. But this was a commercial craft.’

Mr Brown, who said he is ‘not one to shy away from risk’, eventually emailed OceanGate and asked for a refund.

He is worried for his friend but said Mr Harding is not the panicking type. He believes the billionaire is likely keeping ‘extremely calm’ and ‘processing plans, schemes and ideas through his enormous brain’.

He said his friend will be ‘giving hope’ to the other passengers.

A US Navy veteran warned of the chilling health effects of being trapped in a submarine just weeks before the Titanic tourism sub went missing, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In a scientific paper published in a medical journal last month, Dr. Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, detailed the ‘hostile’ environment onboard commercial submersibles, with passengers facing depleting oxygen supplies, toxic carbon dioxide levels and plummeting temperatures.

The Titan vessel that is still missing will have a carbon dioxide scrubber on board to remove excess toxic gas that builds up when passengers exhale in the confined space, but in most craft, those have a limited capacity.

A scrubbing system removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the air safe to breathe. 

Speaking to DailyMail.com Tuesday, Molé said it is ‘very much’ a race against time to rescue the passengers, if they are not already dead from a ‘catastrophic rupture of the pressure vessel.’

He added: ‘Anytime humans are confined in an airtight space, most people may think of oxygen, but carbon dioxide is actually a bigger concern.

‘In a submersible, they’ll have some system of scrubbing carbon dioxide. If they lost battery power, then that system would no longer work.’

There is also a risk of hypothermia due to the low temperatures in the depths of the ocean, as well as hyperventilation induced by panic attacks, which can use up more valuable oxygen. 

It has also emerged that a Florida couple sued the Rush, CEO of the Titanic tourism company OceanGate Expeditions, accusing him of misleading them about their trip to visit the wreck and refusing to refund their $210,258 when they complained.

Marc and Sharon Hagle, who made their fortune in commercial real estate, are well known for their philanthropy and their adventurous spirit. In March 2022, they were on the fourth Blue Origin passenger space flight and became the first married couple to become space tourists.

In 2016, while on a trip to the South Pole, they decided their next adventure would be underwater. In 2017 they were announced as among the first customers for OceanGate, which was founded in 2009 by Seattle-born aviator and businessman Stockton Rush, now 61.

But they never got to take their trip, and in February this year sued Rush, accusing him of selling the adventure knowing it was not on schedule, and refusing to refund their cash. 

A friend of the British billionaire missing on a trip to dive to the Titanic has said she fears his submersible is trapped on the sea bed.

Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian explorer, said she knew Hamish Harding, 58, would be ‘calm’ amid the crisis.

He is one of five people on board a submersible, which at 4am on Sunday began its descent to the resting place of the Titanic, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface.

The round trip – for which participants pay $250,000 – usually takes eight hours. But contact with the mothership was lost one hour and 45 minutes into the trip, before reaching the wreck, and rescuers are now engaged in a race against time to try and recover the submersible and its crew.

‘My biggest fear is knowing that they are trapped, without being able to get help,’ said Mikkelsen.

‘There is no one who can reach him on the bottom.’

Mikkelsen, a cinematographer specializing in extreme environments, said she was deeply concerned by the fact the crew missed their ascent window – their expected time to surface.

On Monday afternoon, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said the submersible has 96 hours of emergency oxygen on board, based on information received from the vessel operator.  

‘My fear is that they didn’t make their last ascent window,’ Mikkelsen told Chris Cuomo on NewsNation.

‘They didn’t. We are starting to make worst case scenarios.’

G. Michael Harris, a Titanic expedition leader, said he knew several of those on board, and the outlook was grim.

He told Fox News’s Jesse Watters that there was oxygen on board and CO2 scrubbers, but ultimately there was no magic solution.

‘Just not feeling good about it,’ he said.

‘When we deploy it’s usually a two and a half hour drop down to the wreck site itself.

‘We go down 3,980 meters. We spiral down, a corkscrew action, about three degrees per second to land right basically in front of the bow of Titanic.

‘Once we get down there we begin our grid searches and our decay and everything that goes on with Titanic.’

Harris said the worst situation would be an implosion of the hull around 3,200 meters.

‘I don’t see anything that can happen at this point. When you are talking 6,000lbs per square inch, it is a dangerous environment.

‘More people have been to outer space than this depth of the ocean.’

He said you have to ‘do everything perfect by the book’, and it was ‘not looking good’. 

Mikkelsen said Harding acted as a mentor to her, and was well aware of the risks he took.

‘Hamish is an explorer at heart and this is one of the things he wanted to explore, on his checklist,’ she said.

‘Hamish knows the risks before he starts.

‘I know that Hamish will be calm, they will work together through their checklist of options.’

The mothership, MV Polar Prince, set off from Newfoundland on Saturday bound for the spot above the Titanic wreck, 370 miles away.

The submersible went into the water in the early hours of Sunday.

On board were Harding, French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet; and CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush. The other two passengers have not been named.

The submersible – it is not a submarine, because it is not independent and relies on a mothership – lost contact with the mothership one hour 45 minutes into its descent.

It takes two and a half hours to descend to the wreck. 

Analysts believe it could have lost power, or sunk and perhaps became trapped on the wreck. Some initially suggested it perhaps surfaced and was bobbing without power, but that seems an increasingly remote possibility.

There were 96 hours of air left on the submersible as of Monday afternoon, and the U.S. Coast Guard said they are engaged in a race against time. 

There are no rescue submarines in the U.S. Coast Guard that are able to reach the depths of the Titanic. 

Harding holds the Guinness World Record for the longest duration spent at the bottom of the sea.

The London-born adventurer set it in 2021, after diving to the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, and traversing it for four hours and 15 minutes.

It was one of three Guinness world records he has earned.

He set another one for the longest distance, three miles, covered at the bottom of the ocean. 

His first was set in 2019, for the fastest circumnavigation of the earth via North and South Poles in a Gulfstream 650ER business jet – with Mikkelsen filming the adventure. 

Last year he went into space.

The father of two – who is friends with astronaut Buzz Aldrin – said recently: ‘I used to read the book of Guinness World Records regularly as a child. I always wondered how I could get into it. I did not think I could do it.

‘And I didn’t want to do something stupid – like setting a record for the number of ping-pong balls bounced in a day, or something like that.’

As the frantic search for the Titanic submersible was underway Monday, family members asked for prayers for Harding as his latest adventure went awry.

The aviator, businessman and explorer is no stranger to perilous expeditions.

He told an interviewer in 2021 how his submarine, Challenger Deep, had sustained a damaged thruster during his journey to the ‘truly spectacular’ Mariana Trench, which lies seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. 

‘The sub has many safety features, including four days’ reserve of oxygen, water and emergency rations,’ he said. 

‘The only problem is that there is no other sub that is capable of going down there to rescue you. It will take three years to build another one. 

‘So, having four days of supply doesn’t make a difference really. 

‘If something goes wrong, you are not coming back.’

Harding, who runs an aviation company in Dubai, also has the distinction of taking the oldest man – moon landing astronaut Aldrin, at the age of 86 – and the youngest, his 12-year-old son, to the South Pole.

‘Buzz is an old friend of mine,’ he said. 

‘We had always talked about going to the South Pole together and we finally did it in 2016.’

An only child, Harding was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1964, and has degrees in natural sciences and chemical engineering from Cambridge University.

Last year, Harding was one of six astronauts to go to space on Blue Origin’s fifth human spaceflight aboard its New Shepard rocket.

And before another trip, to the North Pole two months prior to going into space, he said: ‘People, especially as they grow older, tend to give up on their dreams. When I think of something unusual, I just try to find ways to make it happen.’

Day by day apprehension is growing over the impact on civilisation of AI – artificial intelligence. But so too is the excitement over its potential.

As the AI phenomenon gathered pace in April, I suggested that it made sense to ensure you had some exposure to the sector, directly or through funds such as Allianz Technology, Polar Technology or Templeton Emerging Markets.

This is still my view. It is reasonable to worry about the consequences of the spread of ChatGPT, Dall-E and other ‘deep-learning’ generative AI systems, that produce images, sound and text, while also wishing to benefit from the boom they will create.

Shares in the mega tech companies in this field have risen sharply.

Investors want to back the big and small businesses that will supply the ‘picks and shovels’, the tools that will enable the tech age gold rush.

For example, C3.ai, a Californian software developer, has risen 237 per cent this year – maybe partly because it trades under the AI ticker symbol.

Nvidia, the Silicon Valley semiconductor giant which makes the chips for ChatGPT, is up by 168 per cent in 2023: its market capitalisation briefly came close to $1trillion (£795billion) last month.

Yet the group is still rated a ‘buy’ by a consensus of analysts, an assessment that highlights the hopes of the returns the AI revolution could yield.

Stephen Yiu, the manager of Blue Whale fund, which holds Nvidia and other AI-related stocks, says: ‘We are at the beginning of the journey. Generative AI is only just turning from a concept in a sci-fi movie into reality.’

Management consultancy McKinsey predicts 70 per cent of companies will be using at least one type of AI by 2030, as bosses exploit these technologies to ‘automate, augment, and accelerate work’.

The ebullient Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and chief executive, is hugely confident, saying: ‘A trillion dollars of installed global data centre infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process.’

The journey will be eventful. Sceptics warn of an AI stock bubble, created by hype: the public-facing version of ChatGPT reached 100m users in two months, causing some investors to have unrealistic expectations about its rapid adoption in education, healthcare and other fields. Meanwhile, anxiety that generative AI could trigger catastrophic job losses is leading to calls for the slowing of its implementation.

This is despite concerns that, if the West takes time to ponder the implications, ‘the bad guys’ could gain an advantage, or so one senior Wall Street figure argues.

Sam Altman, founder of Open AI, the creator of ChatGPT, is among those warning of the existential risks, and Rishi Sunak is to host a global summit that could set rules to regulate AI.

Against this background, optimism about the payback has boosted shares in what Bank of America has dubbed the ‘Magnificent Seven’. They are: Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (owner of Google), Meta (the Facebook and Instagram group), Microsoft, which has a stake in Open AI, Tesla and, of course, Nvidia.

Yiu suggests a broader range of businesses. He says: ‘The tools for AI come from names like ASML, Applied Materials chipmaker and Lam Research, an equipment manufacturer. Intel, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company build chips.

‘Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia and wireless technology specialist Qualcomm are experts in design and sales.’

You may be held back from committing to this sector by AI angst – the concern that humankind will be rendered redundant.

Jobs will be lost. But productivity will be improved, and individual ingenuity will still be prized.

Yiu says: ‘AI will help you assemble a Powerpoint presentation far more quickly, but you will still be able to add that personal touch.’

AI systems should also help feed the world. James Yardley, of Fund Calibre, says: ‘Imagine being able to water and feed plants individually in a field – changing their mix depending on the soil and type of plant from one row to another.

‘That’s already happening, with John Deere’s See & Spray AI.’

You may conclude that you are already on the AI journey if you have money in funds with sizeable stakes in Nvidia, like T Rowe Price Global Technology, Martin Currie US Unconstrained or Martin Currie Global Unconstrained.

Microsoft, which is incorporating ChatGPT into its Bing search and Microsoft 365 products, is the largest holding at the F&C trust, where I have some cash.

If you’re looking for more opportunities, Yardley points to Sanlam Global Artificial Intelligence, saying: ‘What this fund’s manager, Chris Ford, doesn’t know about AI really isn’t worth knowing.’

What no one can know is the scale of change AI will bring. Take only bets that you can afford on this journey into the unknown.

House Republicans say that the FBI is violating a subpoena to turn over an alleged Biden ‘bribery’ document because the original informant’s life could be in danger if they are ‘unmasked’ – despite the names being redacted.

According to a ‘highly credible’ whistleblower, an internal FD-1023 memo created in 2020 based off information from a highly-paid FBI informant apparently details a $5 million ‘arrangement’ for an exchange of money for policy decisions between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.

The leaders of the House Oversight Committee were granted access by the FBI Monday to view the redacted FD-1023 form in a secure facility within the Capitol. But it did not satisfy Republicans who are moving forward with contempt of Congress charges against FBI Director Chris Wray for failing to turn over the document in its entirety.

Following a committee meeting Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told DailyMail.com that the Biden whistleblower in the alleged bribery scheme is now afraid ‘someone could kill them if someone found out who they are’ for bringing potentially damaging info to light about Joe Biden when he was vice president. 

As a result Greene said the whistleblower now ‘fears for their own life because of our government.’

She also told DailyMail.com that the foreign nation involved in the $5 million money exchange was Ukraine, and that it happened seven years ago. 

Greene said it’s ‘purely political’ that the FBI isn’t handing over the document to their lawmakers – which has the names of the informant and whistleblower redacted to protect their identities. 

‘And their excuse, which we find to be completely false, is the FBI is claiming it is to protect their informants, even though the names are redacted,’ Greene told DailyMail.com. 

Greene added that the FBI could take measures to protect the informant’s life if they ‘cared about doing the right thing.’

She directly accused Wray of protecting Biden by failing to hand over the document, which shows how ‘deeply political’ the Department of Justice is.

The Georgia congresswoman added that it is necessary to move forward with contempt charges against Wray because the information contained in the document is ‘so damaging and so dangerous to our national security’ that Americans need the facts.

‘The unclassified document should be in our hands right now.’

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna also said Monday that the FBI is afraid the informant would be ‘killed’ if their identity is revealed.

‘Just left meeting for House Oversight. The FBI is afraid their informant will be killed if unmasked, based on the info he has brought forward about the Biden family,’ she stated in a tweet.

The Republicans issued a subpoena for the FD-1023 form last month and FBI Director Chris Wray was given a hard deadline of May 30 to hand over the unclassified document, which he did not comply with.

After reviewing the document Monday, Comer told reporters the accusations contained in the form ‘suggests a pattern of bribery’ consistent with findings the committee has put out publicly. 

It’s called ‘money laundering,’ he said, saying it fits within the pattern of over $1 million in Romanian-linked payments to the Biden family revealed last month. 

In early May, Republicans released a report digging in on over $10 million received by Biden family members from foreign actors, including previously undisclosed $1 million in Romanian-linked payments, and a ‘web’ of 20 companies created while President Joe Biden was vice president and pushing anti-corruption efforts abroad.

He also said the FBI record was ‘not disproven’ and is currently being used in an ongoing investigation that is being conducted by the Department of Justice in Delaware into Hunter Biden’s finances.

The ‘confidential human source’ is a ‘trusted, highly credible informant’ who has been used by the FBI for over 10 years and has been paid over six figures, continued Comer. 

The chairman added that contempt proceedings will begin this Thursday. 

‘At the briefing, the FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody of the House Oversight Committee, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.’

‘The FBI has continually demonstrated its commitment to accommodate the committee’s request, including by producing the document in a reading room at the U.S. Capitol,’ the FBI said in a statement to DailyMail.com Monday.

‘This commonsense safeguard is often employed in response to congressional requests and in court proceedings to protect important concerns, such as the physical safety of sources and the integrity of investigations. The escalation to a contempt vote under these circumstances is unwarranted.’ 

Last week, Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, spoke with Wray by phone and the FBI director offered to let them and Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., view the documents at the FBI headquarters in an attempt to stave off the contempt threat.

Comer also informed Wray that he was also narrowing the breadth of the subpoena for the document by providing two additional terms that may be referenced in the record: ‘June 30, 2020’ and ‘five million.’

Raskin blasted the Republicans’ handling of the document in a reporter gaggle following Monday’s briefing, calling it ‘second-hand hearsay.’

He said former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady for the Western District of Pennsylvania and then-Attorney General Bill Barr did not find any reason to escalate the investigation into all ‘allegations related to Ukraine’ based on the FD-1023 form.

‘I am just surprised that my colleagues want to try to litigate this in public, much less hold the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in contempt for complying with the request when there was a whole process that was undertaken, and that process came to its natural end as I understand it,’ Raskin said.

He would not directly confirm that the foreign national alleged in the memo being sought by Republicans is from Ukraine. 

Raskin did agree with his Republican colleagues that the whistleblower is considered ‘credible.’ 

The White House has also pushed back, calling the Republican-led investigation ‘unfounded’ and ‘politically motivated.’ 

Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed up Comer’s contempt threat – saying he is ‘prepared’ to move forward with the charge.

‘We have jurisdiction over the FBI, which they seem to act like we do not,’ said McCarthy.

The FBI’s latest stonewalling also comes after a second IRS whistleblower came forward, claiming he was sidelined from the Hunter Biden probe when he spoke up about the president’s son getting preferential treatment.

The case agent, who has not been identified, says he was fired recently without any explanation after working on the Hunter Biden investigation since 2018, according to documents sent to congressional leaders obtained by DailyMail.com.

This is the second whistleblower to come forward in recent days on the matter.

According to documents, he informed Congress last week about backlash he suffered for acting as a whistleblower and alleged unfair retaliatory treatment.

He sent an email in recent weeks to senior IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and several other officials alleging that he was ousted for raising concerns that the Department of Justice was ‘acting inappropriately’ in its handling of the investigation into the president’s son.

His complaint comes days after the Department of Justice removed the entire team probing Hunter Biden’s tax returns, according to attorneys representing an initial supervisory whistleblower – Gary Shapley. 

Shapley testified before the GOP-led Ways and Means Committee for six hours and answered all questions from both Republicans and Democrats, DailyMail.com learned.

The FBI search of former Donald Trump‘s Florida home has triggered feverish speculation that he will soon announce a 2024 run – exciting supporters but worrying party leaders and donors that he could ruin hopes of retaking the House and Senate in November’s midterms.

‘I think he’s running,’ said Eric Levine, an attorney and longtime Republican fundraiser. ‘The only question is whether he announces before the midterms, which would be a disaster.’

Multiple party insiders told DailyMail.com they fear an early announcement would divert fundraising away from candidates and towards the Trump war chest. 

And it would turn the midterms from being a winnable referendum on Joe Biden‘s presidency – its economic crises and foreign policy missteps – to a Trump versus Biden beauty pageant.

Trump grabbed the initiative by posting a campaign-style video on his Truth Social platform after midnight on Tuesday. He calls America ‘a nation in decline’ and slams Biden before ending with the slogan: ‘The best is yet to come.’

At the same time, he has upped the number of fundraising emails sent to his distribution list.

‘Mar-a-Lago was raided,’ said one sent on Wednesday. ‘The radical left is corrupt.

‘We must return the power to the people.’

FBI agents entered Trump’s home as they investigated the removal of classified records from the White House when his term ended in 2021. 

The result was outrage among Republicans, who accused the Biden administration of politicizing the FBI and the Justice Department.

Allies have been urging Trump to jump straight into the campaign to retake the White House. 

John Fredericks, radio host and chair of the Trump Virginia campaign in 2016 and 2020, said he should announce ‘today’ and launch a tour of swing districts immediately.

‘It leads him to a landslide victory in November 2024, it leads to a massive 50-70 House gain and three in the Senate,’ he said.

‘This has activated the Trump MAGA base like nothing I’ve ever seen. It has activated independents and this is going to backfire on the administrative state and the leftwing Marxists who are now in charge.’

Trump insiders have been divided for months on when to announce. Some have pushed for weeks to announce quickly in order to head off possible opponents, particularly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who has been making headline and gaining ground.

Others prefer a more conventional route, announcing after November’s midterms.

But Trump himself has floated the idea of announcing ahead of this year’s elections in order to create the biggest splash. 

That fills Republicans working on fall campaigns with dread. 

A senior strategist, working on several midterm campaigns, said an early announcement would be a disaster for hopes of winning back the House and the Senate, diverting fundraising from candidates to Trump. 

‘By taking this action, the FBI has greatly increased the likelihood that Trump will announce his candidacy before November, which Democrats would absolutely love to see,’ said the source, who worked on the 2020 Trump campaign and asked for anonymity to avoid drawing fire on his candidate.

‘If Democrats retain control of the House, the FBI will remain safe from oversight and accountability.’

There is also horror on the Hill that it would let Biden off the hook. He is deeply unpopular and, if the elections follow the usual historical pattern of thumping the party in power, Democrats can expect to lose seats in both the House and Senate.

‘That would be a significant gift to Democrats. he would suck up so much oxygen and remind voters of why he lost last time, instead of thinking about the multiple failures of Joe Biden.’ 

For his part, Levine said the raid on Mar-a-Lago was outrageous. 

‘But the fact that this was outrageous doesn’t necessarily qualify Trump to become president,’ he said.

‘So I don’t think it changed the landscape for running for president at all, but it may change the landscape for when he announces.’

Trump’s grip on the activist base remains tight.

At the weekend, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas revealed that 69 percent of attendees want Trump as their candidate in 2024.

Staff working on This Morning fear the show could be taken off air following Phillip Schofield’s confession that he had an affair with a young colleague and lied about it.

Insiders say that there is concern that the embattled daytime show should be ‘rested’ for some time, or even be revamped with a new name amid fears viewers no longer trust the show.

One source said: ‘The show is an institution but it has been badly damaged by all of this. Lies have been told and that has undermined everything that the audience tunes in for. There is genuine concern that it could have some time off the airwaves.’

The channel’s senior bosses are coming under increasing pressure to declare who knew what when about Schofield and his relationship with the production assistant, after it emerged that they previously held an investigation into rumours of an affair. 

That was in 2020 when, ITV insists, both men denied they were in a relationship.

The broadcaster’s chief executive, Carolyn McCall, director of television Kevin Lygo, head of daytime Emma Gormley and This Morning editor Martin Frizell insist that they were also lied to by the presenter. 

Ms McCall’s communications chief, Paul Moore, was also involved in looking into the situation. 

None knew Schofield had quit ITV on Friday evening until they read the statement he issued to the Daily Mail, admitting he had lied over the relationship.

It has now also been claimed that a star of another ITV show formally complained to management about how the junior employee had been treated.

Other staff are furious and worried that they are having to ‘deal with the very real fallout of Schofield’s mixed-up professional and personal life’.

One said: ‘We love [the production assistant] but he’s very troubled now. What if he can’t cope?’

Another source at the channel said: ‘It is pretty difficult to believe that none of the top bosses knew anything. There were rumours flying around ITV for some time.’

Meanwhile, Schofield’s former colleague Eamonn Holmes – who was left furious when he was sacked from This Morning in November 2021 – took to social media to make a string of allegations, suggesting station bosses knew of claims against Schofield and ‘never once took action’.

Ms Gormley, who oversees This Morning, is understood to have had a close working relationship with Schofield and Mr Lygo was also said to be close to the fallen star. 

But last week sources said This Morning editor Mr Frizell had grown ‘fed up of clearing up Schofield’s mess’.

ITV issued a robust response yesterday, insisting that they were lied to by their former golden boy for several years. 

A spokeswoman said: ‘ITV can confirm that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in early 2020, ITV investigated. 

Both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours as did Phillip’s then agency YMU.

‘In addition, ITV spoke to a number of people who worked on This Morning and were not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour. 

Phillip’s statement on Friday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship.’

Another insider told The Mail on Sunday that some bosses fear the scandal will have an adverse effect on ITV’s share price when the stock market opens after the bank holiday on Tuesday.

They said: ‘The investor relations team are living on their nerves, they are worried that all of this could have ramifications.’

Russian soldiers will be ‘shaking with fear’ at the UK’s decision to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles amid Kyiv‘s upcoming counteroffensive, a retired US Army Colonel said today. 

Gian Gentile, who served two tours in Iraq, said the deadly missiles may be catastrophic for Russia‘s war efforts as they will allow Ukrainian troops to hit Russian soldiers and command centres deep into Moscow-held territory in eastern Ukraine.

Gentile, the associate director of think tank RAND’s Arroyo Centre in the US, said the delivery of Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine will have a huge psychological impact on Russian soldiers, whose levels of morale are already at ‘rock bottom’ amid heavy losses on the battlefield.

In the face of the Storm Shadow missiles, US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems and armoured fighting vehicles that can destroy tanks, Russian troops will be ‘shaking in their boots’ with fear ahead of Ukraine’s upcoming counteroffensive, Gentile said.

‘Discounting all of the bluff and bravado of Russian political leadership and senior generals who are far, far away from the front line, the Russian troops fighting there will be shaking in their boots about the prospect of this likely upcoming counteroffensive,’ Gentile told MailOnline.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, 197,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, according to Kyiv’s estimates. And Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive could prove deadly for thousands more – especially with the weapons supplied by Western allies including the UK and US.

Yesterday, UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace confirmed that Britain is sending the Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, a decision that prompted a furious response from the Kremlin.

‘We see this decision as an extremely hostile step from London, aimed at further pumping weapons into Ukraine and leading to a serious escalation of the situation,’ Russia’s foreign ministry said on Friday. 

Gentile, also a senior historian at RAND, said the move to provide the weapons is significant for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. 

The Storm Shadow missiles, which have a firing range of more than 155 miles, will give the Ukrainian troops the ability to strike ‘high-end targets like command and control nodes, logistic supply points, and potentially troop concentration areas deep in Russian held territory in Ukraine,’ Gentile said.

The retired colonel said this is ‘significant’ as it extends the striking range of US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems currently in use and frees up the HIMARs for other missions.

He pointed to how, in the past, if Ukrainian troops had wanted to strike a Russian logistics base in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, they would have to move the HIMARS very close to the embattled city. 

‘But now, with the Storm Shadow cruise missiles, they have the capability to strike this kind of target but from a distance,’ Gentile said.

‘This is a big deal. It will help Ukraine and it will further complicate Russian defensive measures as they will now have two longer range strike missiles to worry about and defend against.’

Gentile added: ‘And let’s not forget the psychological effect the introduction of the Storm Shadow cruise missile can have on the Russian military in Ukraine whose levels of morale are at rock bottom.’

The Storm Shadow is an air-launched long-range missile, designed for attacks against high-value targets such as hardened bunkers and key infrastructure. 

The missile, jointly developed by the UK and France, has a firing range of more than 155 miles (250km) which means Kyiv would be able to strike deep into Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine where the fiercest battles are ongoing.

Dr Alan Mendoza, Executive Director of the think tank Henry Jackson Society, told MailOnline: ‘Providing Ukraine with Storm Shadow Missiles gives Kyiv the long-range striking capabilities it needs in advance of a highly anticipated rise in the Russian offensive.

‘The precision-guided weapons would allow Ukraine to strike targets anywhere in the country. 

‘This is a critical kit and an essential boost in our support allowing Ukrainian forces to reach behind enemy lines and giving them the best chance of defending themselves against Putin’s aggression.’

Announcing the decision to supply Ukraine with the Storm Shadow missiles, Wallace told the Houses of Parliament yesterday: ‘The donation of these weapons systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend themselves against Russia’s continued brutality, especially with the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, which is against international law. 

‘Ukraine has a right to be able to defend itself.’

Britain has received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles would be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia, multiple senior Western officials said. 

Wallace said the missiles would be used to push back Russian forces in ‘Ukrainian sovereign territory’, while adding that the UK’s support for Ukraine is ‘responsible, calibrated, coordinated and agile’.

‘We simply will not stand back while Russia kills civilians,’ Wallace said.

Wallace did not say how many cruise missiles were being sent to Ukraine, but said they are ‘now going into or are in the country itself’. 

Britain and other Western countries have scaled up their military aid for Ukraine this year, with Britain saying in January it would send 14 of its main Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, a pledge that was followed by other nations including the United States and Germany.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Munich Security Conference in February that Britain would be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer range weapons. 

The United States said in February it would provide the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), which has a range of about 151 km.

The war in Ukraine is at a turning point. Kyiv is expected to unleash its new counteroffensive after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive, while Russia mounted a huge winter offensive that failed to capture significant territory.

Moscow’s main target for months has been Bakhmut, which it has come close to capturing but not quite taken in what would be its sole prize after months of the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War Two. 

Kyiv says it has pushed Russian forces back over the past two days near Bakhmut in small-scale local assaults, but a counteroffensive involving tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of new Western tanks has yet to begin.

Today, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted that Ukrainian forces have counter-attacked Russian positions around Bakhmut – as the warlord mocked Kremlin defence minister Sergei Shoigu.

‘The situation on the flanks is shaping up according to the worst predicted scenario,’ Prigozhin said, signalling fresh misery for Putin‘s troops.  

‘Those territories, which were taken with the blood and lives of our comrades-in-arms for many months, every day, by tens or hundreds of metres are now being thrown almost without a fight by those [Russian army soldiers] who are supposed to hold our flanks.’

Prigozhin then directly addressed the long-suffering Shoigu.

‘Given your super long experience, please can you come to Bakhmut?’ he asked sarcastically, poking fun at the defence minister’s civilian background in engineering.

President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to manage expectations around the pushback in Bakhmut, telling reporters the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive was yet to begin in earnest and declaring: ‘We still need a bit more time.’

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maylar added later Friday: ‘The enemy has suffered great losses of manpower. Our defence forces advanced two kilometres (around one mile) near Bakhmut. We did not lose a single position in Bakhmut this week.’ 

Moscow has since denied the reports of Ukrainian counter-offensives in Bakhmut and said the frontline is under control.

‘Statements circulated by individual Telegram channels about ”defence breakthroughs” that took place in different areas along the line of military contact do not correspond to reality,’ the Russian defence ministry said in a Telegram post.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov meanwhile told Russian news service TASS that the military operation in the east of Ukraine was ‘very difficult’ but ‘certain goals have been achieved’. 

Ukrainian forces have been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware that analysts say will be key to reclaiming territory captured by Russia.

The timing of Kyiv’s effort to claw back ground in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, remains a question.