Alexander Vershbow

Amb Alexander Vershbow was NATO Deputy SecGen 2012-2016, previously US Amb to NATO, Russia and S.Korea and Asst Secretary of Defense, now at Atlantic Council

[Daniel Fried @AmbDanFried]

The gap between the administration’s Russia policy and Americans’ general views may mean that moving to a free world strategy from whatever it is the USG is now doing may be fast.

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: Donald Trump is reportedly furious after seeing the clip of Barack Obama making fun of him, not because of the joke about his decor style being a mix of Saddam and the Cheesecake Factory, but because the crowd is 20x the crowd he can get even when paying the attendees.

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

Ukraine is out of Patriot interceptors. Trump is waiving sanctions on Russia to enrich its war machine and blaming Zelenskyy for not wanting to forfeit sovereign territory to an occupation regime of child thieves and rapists. The White House decided to toy with Ukrainian lives this week by throttling satellite internet for a day, just to show an embattled ally who’s boss. If the U.S. is aligning with Russia, then no — Ukraine doesn’t have to play it decorously any longer. This isn’t a fucking cotillion. It’s war. And if Europe doesn’t want to treat it as such, and stand up to the Nero in Washington, then MAGA’s point about NATO and the EU is amply demonstrated. Enough is enough.

[Daniel Fried @AmbDanFried]

Exactly.

[Trudy Rubin @trudyrubin]

If #Trump wants win-win in #Ukrainewar he needs to ally with #Kyiv, not #Moscow. https://t.co/LhdVIPsZk5 @FredKempe @general_ben @ACEurasia

[Edward Lucas @edwardlucas]

For anyone wondering what's going on in the "news" about a looming Russian attack, landgrab, drone strike etc.
Please remember this.
Scaremongering is a Kremlin psy-op.
The real attack is not on
-- infrastructure
-- industry
-- individuals
or any other physical target.
It's on our decision-making. Kremlin is trying to spread FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt).
Far too many supposedly expert/hawkish voices are amplifying this.
Also: the Baltic states are not squares on a chessboard. They have agency. Vigilant, prepared, supported by allies. Stop patronising them.

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

https://t.co/n6L8U4MgFQ
Listen to @dianefrancis1 “Europe keeps asking how it can prevent a future war with #Russia, but that is the wrong question. The real question is how #Europe intends to respond aggressively to the war already being conducted against it”

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Reminder to those who apparently don't know: the Kennedy Center was financially robust, with many private donors, before this administration undermined it, chased out the National Symphony, Washington Opera and others. Trump has forced it into bankruptcy out of sheer vanity.

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

https://t.co/2BXRDhTUuO

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

Trump’s Ukraine negotiators are too chicken to visit Kyiv and support its independence https://t.co/f4j0sTF5oc

@TrudyRubin’s column, as usual, is right on the mark. @ACEurasia

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

Sending the CIA Director to Moscow Shows Washington Is Flying Blind https://t.co/SLMuD8pw6w

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

The unvarnished truth from @PhillipsPOBrien https://t.co/l53gLDepsR

[Daniel Fried @AmbDanFried]

Those who enjoyed "Brink of War" (about the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Reykjavik) might wonder about its accuracy. It got pretty close. See Tom Simons' article (attached) for the best take I know of. Tom was there. @JohnEdHerbst @ARVershbow

https://t.co/JIyxTaXtKo

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

Want cheaper groceries, gas, or for this pointless war in Iran to end? Sorry, the GOP said "there's nothing we could do to rein in the president." You'll just have to suffer.

The Republican Party has utterly failed you, MAGA.

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

https://t.co/vWPSXMtOKx https://t.co/zWWEMA8dtE

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

I strongly agree with @KVolker’s proposal. #NATO inaction will only invite further #Russian escalation against allied territory, undermine deterrence

[Alex Raufoglu @ralexdc]

As Russian missiles breach Polish airspace, former U.S. envoy Kurt Volker tells @RFERL that NATO needs to stop playing defense. His fix? A joint 200km air-defense "exclusion zone" inside Ukraine -- and an immediate order to shoot down anything that crosses the border.

👇
https://t.co/6ZaUjwIfm8

[Evan Kirstel #B2B #TechFluencer @EvanKirstel]

@jalle51

[Sir William Browder KCMG @Billbrowder]

I’ve fought Putin for 17 years – he’d rather watch Russia burn than admit he can’t win this war
https://t.co/mjxJoD9XhR

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

Moscow Is Burning, and Father Cannot Help by Elvira Bary https://t.co/ZgvVDsm3mk

[Alexander Vershbow @ARVershbow]

Sensational tweet denouncing #Putin by renowned former General #Leonid#Ivashov

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

⚡ Renowned Russian military figure, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, assessed the results of the so-called “Special Military Operation” (SMO). (He chaired the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly for many years and retired after 2022.)

📌 These days mark the anniversary of the Pristina dash. That was a real special operation. Under Yeltsin, in a single day, the whole world began to respect us. There was NOT A SINGLE CASUALTY (!) Now, under Putin (with the war entering its fifth year), Russia has achieved NOT A SINGLE GOAL! Nearly one million Russians have been killed. And the entire world has stopped respecting us.

📌 How pitiful is the jester sitting on the King’s throne. (Generals have never spoken about Putin like this before. The whole country says it, but for generals, this is a first.)

📌 Armenia is a nation of high culture. Moscow has lost Russia’s last stronghold in the Caucasus. EVERYONE is moving away from Russia. Everyone is striving to join the EU and NATO.

📌 “Foreign agents” are being created simply for having an opinion or telling the truth.

📌 Even the international event #SPIEF could not protect itself — the Ukrainian Armed Forces repeatedly and easily targeted Saint Petersburg.

📌 We have no successes at the operational-tactical level, and at the strategic level we have suffered defeat in EVERY direction.

📌 EVERY sector of industry has been devastated.

📌 Science is in critical condition, and education has simply collapsed.

📌 Let me remind you that 98% of major corruption offenders belong to the ruling United Russia party.

📌 The wild rise in prices is alarming; the Russian people are becoming poorer before our eyes.

📌 Healthcare is being destroyed. ALL regions are cutting healthcare spending.

📌 If not for the SMO, Trump would not have “taken Maduro away” and would not have attacked Iran, I am convinced. International law has been in profound crisis since 2022.

📌 The quality of food keeps getting worse, palm oil is everywhere, and food in Russia is becoming toxic.

📌 The ONLY area where Russia is a world leader is demographics. We lead in population decline. Even without the war, and the war is simply wiping out men.

📌 Our leadership boasts that no one has weapons like ours. A more accurate statement would be that nowhere else in the military sphere is there as much corruption as there is here.

📌 Our only allies left are North Korea and Belarus, but they will not help us. They can only drain our resources, and soon we may not have any left ourselves. I worked with the Chinese for many years. China is not our ally — that is a myth and Kremlin propaganda.

📌 Failures exist in every sphere: from the economy to the SMO.

📌 Russia’s nuclear weapons will not help; they are harmful to everyone. We should not even be talking about them.

📌 A strategic defeat in the war with Ukraine will most likely lead to the collapse of Russia.

#General #Ivashov opposed the start of military action in Ukraine from the very beginning in 2022 and urged Putin not to take what he called a catastrophic step.

“This war will threaten the very existence of Russia,” Ivashov wrote at the time. ❗