Setting red lines is all very well, as long as you follow through when they are crossed. President Joe Biden knows that all too well.

But he also knows that if he follows through on this big new red line of withholding offensive weapons for Israel it could cost him dearly domestically.

The push-me-pull-you balance of geopolitics and domestic politics is intensely difficult right now for the American president.

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I’ll break this down into two parts. The politics in a moment. First the challenges of red lines.

Western leaders throw them down in interviews, like Mr Biden’s pronouncement on CNN last night, as unequivocal threats. “Cross the line, if you dare!” is the rhetoric.

But too often they turn out to be flawed tools of geo-political diplomacy.

Barack Obama set a chemical weapons red line with Syria’s Bashar al Assad in 2012. He walked right through it.

Vladimir Putin remembered that when he walked through a red line Mr Biden had set on Ukraine in 2021. Mr Putin invaded. The rest is history.

Every red line is distinct, of course, and they vary in terms of the gravity of the event they are seeking to prevent.

But the principle behind laying them is the same, as is the message set when they are crossed.

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Biden’s frustration with Netanyahu

Over the past six months, as Israel has sought to defeat Hamas in Gaza, President Biden didn’t think he’d need to lay out red lines. After all, Israel is one of America’s closest allies.

Instead, the Biden administration thought gentle diplomacy and frank back-channels with a “close friend of America” would do the trick.

But gradually, as Mr Biden and the Netanyahu government increasingly diverged on protecting civilians and a plan for “the day after” in Gaza, a red line began to appear – Rafah.

This has become Mr Biden’s red line for Israel.

The American president has repeatedly made clear his opposition to Mr Netanyahu’s insistence on a ground invasion of the southern Gazan city (Mr Netanyahu’s own red line) where about 1.4 million people are living, half of them under 18.

The Israeli military has not (yet) moved into Rafah city but is instead concentrating its operations to the east of the city and around the crossing to Egypt.

That fact has allowed the Biden administration to claim its red line hasn’t yet been crossed. “They didn’t describe it as a major ground operation,” spokesman John Kirby said this week.

Sometimes, red lines are smashed through. Sometimes, they are gradually chipped away at.

To counter the chipping Mr Netanyahu has been doing for weeks, Mr Biden hardened his red line.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” he told CNN.

A significant admission

That he has personally admitted what was already a fact – that American weapons have killed thousands of civilians – is significant.

But there is important nuance in his red line.

He’s talking about stopping the delivery of offensive weapons for the type of operations that have flattened much of Gaza and could do the same to Rafah.

He is not threatening to cut Israel off from all US weapons, of course not.

Defensive weapons to counter Iranian proxy rockets will keep coming. As will long-range weapons and jets to counter Iran. None of that will stop being delivered.

Still, it’s a big shift for Biden. It’s not been done before and symbolically for Israel, in the middle of its longest and most critical war, it looks terrible.

The domestic political risks

And that brings us to the domestic politics of all this.

For every lever of influence Mr Biden pulls (and he’s seen they have their limited use) there is a domestic political calculus.

Pretty much all Republicans are against every lever; they want nothing less than unequivocal support for Israel.

More than that though – a significant number of his own Democrats will also be uneasy about America limiting weapons for Israel.

But critical voters in key states are very pro-Palestine. President Biden isn’t oblivious to their cry “Genocide Joe!”

It is a perilous political push-me-pull-you and the election is six months away.

VANCOUVER — There were questions, and the Edmonton Oilers certainly had answers about how they lost a three-goal lead in Wednesday night’s 5-4 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

Especially when the Oilers’ latest loss dropped them to 0-5 against the Canucks in the regular season and the playoffs combined. Even while facing questions about what went wrong, the Oilers remained steadfast about their Game 1 performance and why the series is far from over after just one game.

“I thought we gave them this one, and I think we know that it’s going to be a long series,” Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner said. “That’s how the playoffs are — you got to win four in order to keep it going. They’re up one right now, and we know that we can beat these guys. They beat us five games this year, but that gives us a lot of fire for ourselves to try to come back and get back in the series right away.”

Edmonton took a 2-0 lead on a pair of first-period goals from Zach Hyman and Mattias Ekholm. The Canucks cut the lead in half in the second period when Dakota Joshua scored 53 seconds into the frame, only to see Cody Ceci and Hyman push the lead to 4-1 with 6:49 remaining in the second.

So how did the Oilers go from having a firm lead to eventually losing their grip?

Canucks center Elias Lindholm was at the goal line when he flicked a puck on net that appeared to have been deflected as it slipped beyond Skinner, making the score 4-2 with 2:59 left in the second.

With a little more than 10 minutes left in the third period, Canucks forward Brock Boeser played a pass to J.T. Miller that saw the puck go off his stick and past Skinner to cut the lead to 4-3.

Four minutes later, Canucks forward Teddy Blueger played a back pass to Nikita Zadorov, with the hulking defenseman launching a slap shot that beat Skinner to tie the score at 4-4 with 6:13 left.

Then came the goal that allowed the Canucks to complete the comeback, causing Rogers Arena to go from library quiet to deafeningly loud.

Vancouver had just won a faceoff in its own zone when Zadorov played an outlet pass from behind the net to Joshua. He held the puck for less than two seconds at center ice, which freed Conor Garland to fake a shot before firing an actual attempt a second later that sailed past Skinner for a 5-4 lead with 5:35 remaining.

Garland’s goal also underlined how the Canucks, after struggling to find their footing, outshot the Oilers 19-7 between the second and third periods.

“It’s something we’ll have to learn from a little bit,” Ekholm said. “When they score, it’s all about that next shift. They’re going to score. It’s not like we’re going to keep them to nothing. At the end of the day, we let them get three goals and put ourselves in a tough spot. Up until that point, we were in a really great spot, but we kind of gave it away, so that’s the disappointing part.”

Ekholm also said he thought quite a few of the Canucks’ goals were not due to the Oilers having a breakdown in their system. Natural Stat Trick’s metrics showed that while the Canucks had 10 high-danger chances, they had only one in 5-on-5 play in the third period while having a shot share of 42.1%.

Oilers star center and captain Connor McDavid echoed that sentiment.

“I thought they were strange goals all around,” McDavid said. “We’ve scored some strange ones, too. In kind of a frantic game, you’re going to get that. Definitely some weird ones, some preventable ones, too. Overall, I didn’t mind our game.”

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said his team was a little too passive.

But did Knoblauch agree with his players that the system worked but didn’t get the desired results?

“There’s always things you can adjust,” Knoblauch said. “There’s going to be mistakes. … The players have to read and react. I thought they were in pretty good positions, and we didn’t have any major breakdowns.”

Russia only had one tank on display during its Victory Day parade this year.

Every year, Moscow wraps itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, a celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Today marks the 79th anniversary and Mr Putin addressed the parade in the Red Square, trying to talk up his country’s military capabilities in a speech aimed as much at the foreign audience as a domestic one.

Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech this year to try and warn Russia’s combat forces were “always ready” but admitted the country was going through a “difficult period”.

In the parade in Moscow, only one tank was present throughout the entire display – as the country continues to dedicate considerable firepower and resources to its war in Ukraine.

The Second World War T34 tank was the only one present – as it was last year too.

Back in the delayed 2020 parade there were reportedly over 20 tanks present, compared to just one in 2023 and one in 2024.

Other armoured vehicles were pictured as thousands of servicemen marched along the parade.

During this year’s speech, Mr Putin admitted that Russia was going through a “difficult period” as the “future of the motherland depends on us”.

“Today on Victory Day we are conscious of that even more acutely,” he said before warning: “Our strategic forces are always combat ready.”

The leader of the Kremlin also said Russia’s nuclear forces were always at combat readiness, as he addressed massed ranks of Russian servicemen.

Mr Putin said on Thursday that Russia would do everything it could to avoid global confrontation, but it would not allow anyone to threaten it.

He also used the speech to send a message to the Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, trying to bolster their morale as the war continues to drag on.

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He finished on: “For Russia! For victory! Hurrah!” Prompting thousands of soldiers to cheer in return.

Earlier this year, Russia began refitting old tanks after losing 3,000 while fighting in Ukraine, according to a leading research centre.

Moscow lost more than its entire pre-invasion active inventory of tanks in its war with Ukraine, but has enough lower-quality armoured vehicles in storage for years of replacements, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.

But even after such losses, the IISS said Russia still had about twice as many available for combat as Ukraine.

Since coming to power on the last day of 1999, Mr Putin has made 9 May an important part of his political agenda, featuring displays of military might.

Columns of military vehicles and missiles roll across Red Square every year and squadrons of fighter jets roar overhead as medal-bedecked veterans join him to review the parade.

Many wear the black-and-orange St George’s ribbon that is traditionally associated with Victory Day.