Barfly

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@asimplefoolblog Silly American doesn't read books so can't understand why an educated foreigner takes their job so resorts to Russian propaganda to make themselves feel better

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@JustinWStapley Zelensky was kind of a joke pre-2022 and not as popular as you may think in Ukraine. The invasion brought out these characteristics which is both sad but also kind of how the world works. It often takes tragedy for good leadership to emerge

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@JamesSurowiecki There would be no sympathy if a man ran the same scam

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

“The Trump effect”

Russian attacks on Ukraine intensified soon after Trump was elected in November 2024, and they have kept intensifying since. See the graph. I call it the Trump effect.

Instead of ending the war in twenty-four hours, as he promised, Trump gave Putin a green light. He suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. He threatened Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. He praised Putin, called him a friend and invited him to America. He lifted sanctions on russian oil exports. He extended an invitation for russia to attend the G20.

Each of these steps sent the same signal to the Kremlin: the political cost of escalation is falling. Putin read that signal loud and clear. When aggression is tolerated, escalation is cheap.

There is a basic principle of deterrence here. Deterrence works only if the aggressor believes that crossing a line will be punished. When the line is erased and the punishment is replaced with praise, the aggressor updates his expectations and acts accordingly. That is what we have watched happen over the past twenty months.

[Rt Hon Sir Grant Shapps @grantshapps]

Yesterday, Germany named Russia as responsible for the drone attack on Leipzig-Halle Airport. Berlin summoned the Russian ambassador, ordered the consulate in Bonn to close, shut the Russian House in Berlin, and raised its national threat level.

So I went back through the record. Not the suspicions. Not the speculation. The cases that have been settled in court or formally attributed by a government.

The scales below mark cases proven in court. The columns mark cases attributed by a government.

⚖️ March 2024, London. Warehouse holding Starlink terminals for Ukraine burned down. Five convicted, up to 17 years. Ordered by Wagner via Telegram.

⚖️ May 2024, Vilnius. IKEA store set alight. A Ukrainian, 17 at the time, jailed. He acted for Russian military and security structures.

🏛️ May 2024, Warsaw. Marywilska 44 shopping centre destroyed, 1,400 units lost. Poland's Prime Minister confirmed it was arson ordered by Russian services.

⚖️ January 2025, Estonia. A supermarket and a Ukrainian restaurant torched. Two convicted. The court found the principal was tasked by the GRU.

⚖️ March 2025, Cologne. GPS-tracked parcels used to map delivery routes. A Ukrainian convicted of acting as a sabotage agent; the court found a Russian state entity initiated it.

⚖️ May 2025, London. Six Bulgarians jailed for a combined 50 years for surveillance run from a Great Yarmouth guesthouse. Targets: journalists, dissidents, Ukrainian troops.

⚖️ October 2025, Poland. Three Ukrainians convicted over a sabotage network spanning Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia.

🏛️ November 2025, Poland. Explosion on the Warsaw-Lublin railway, a route carrying aid to Ukraine. Two men working with Russian intelligence identified. Classed as terrorism.

🏛️ August 2026, Leipzig. Explosive drone found beside a Ukrainian cargo aircraft. Attributed to Russia yesterday.

Nine established cases. Six proven in court, three formally attributed by governments. Five countries. Britain in two of them.

There is also a case currently before the British courts, which I have deliberately excluded from the tally above. In July 2024 an incendiary device posted from Vilnius ignited at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, one of four parcels sent across Europe. Fifteen people have been charged. Those proceedings are ongoing and the allegations have yet to be determined by the court.

And these nine are only the cases that have been established. There are many more besides: the plots disrupted before they landed, the cases still under investigation, the incidents no government has yet felt able to name.

This is not a series of unfortunate events. It is a campaign.

Russia is at war with the West today. Not tomorrow, not in some future scenario we can plan for at leisure. Today.

We need to respond as though we understand that, and defend ourselves and our democracies accordingly.

[🇺🇦 ꑭWokeBanderite ꑭ🇪🇺 @BanderiteAzov]

I hate when people bring up the “they bombed Donbas for 8 years” and I have to dig out the video of prigozhin saying it’s bs

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@Schwalm5132 Trump is obese, and starts fights with people on his phone like a teenage girl. Plus he cheats on his wife, lies, and steals. Vance is out of shape, too and lies constantly. These are beta males

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@aylesburyowl NATO expanded since 2022, great strategy

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@markcurtis30 Remember when Tucker interviewed Putin and tried to get him to say this and instead he gave an old grandpa lecture about kings from the 1600s

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@L0m3z Reminds one of Fight Club applied to 2026 where the main complaint of the protagonist is that he had a job in an office with decent Healthcare and travel

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@thekevinjon And after 90 days you have to leave or get a residency permit. The red tape nightmare of the karta pobytu is conveniently left out of this fancy illustration

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@emeriticus Not a coincidence that their influence is sliding as Russian oil terminals blow up all year

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@EdwardTWinz Before Putin got rid of Prigozhin, he tried to escape with a dufflebag of dollars. Nice copium but nobody respects phony BRICS money

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@RichardHanania Their money is running out, that's why

https://t.co/TQHfnfqBuF

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

The situation is terrifying in Volgograd. Overnight, Ukrainian drones struck facilities across the city, including the Volgograd Oil Refinery and two Wildberries warehouses.

Volgograd Oil Refinery processes around 15.7 million tonnes of crude oil per year, making it one of the largest oil refineries in russia. Reports indicate the refinery was targeted during the overnight attack, though official confirmation of the strike’s impact is still pending.

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@WeTheBrandon Either you are unbiased and a bad journalist for not understanding USA gives no aid to Ukraine or you are biased. Can't be both though

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@Neural_Ned @ryangrim Property tax, state income tax, social security, Medicare, sales tax, capital gains tax, tolls plus outrageous health care premiums which are a tax on healthy young people

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@bonchieredstate Gives Putin a pass for non stop war crimes while never missing a moment to condem Iarael for war crimes and colonialism

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@ajlamesa Get government out of health care and all will be fine. This is why Lasik surgery (not covered by health insurance) has transparent and competitive pricing. More government is not a solution to bad government

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@BonkDaCarnivore If all home prices are inflating at the same time, how useful is this equity? What about the offset of higher property taxes?

[Barfly @NAFOBarfly]

@puckrin Because of too much government. The Fed inflated everything, government student loans made college unaffordable, and government spending is taxing the middle class too much, plus healthcare. People embrace the government when it created this mess