Dan Ridler

International Relations, Politics, Economics - Russia/Ukraine at EIU. Displaced Worcestershire lad.

[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.

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

The “almost certainly AI slop award” of the day goes to: https://t.co/B09fqvLiD1

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

@bneeditor I guess it can be both more practical for both sides to negotiate this way, and also a bit dumb for Kushner to emphasise it. Either way, probably the language isn’t the biggest barrier to peace at the moment.

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

@MarkGaleotti If both sides hate you, you are probably doing something right.

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

The decision to put the words "poor research" and "academic malpractice" in a sentence next to someone's name is highly questionable - even if to deny it. How would "Is Daron Acemoglu's reputation justified by his scholarship" have been a worse headline?

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

No economist accuses him of truly poor research, let alone academic malpractice. But is Daron Acemoglu’s reputation justified by his scholarship? https://t.co/8htJfYCmuA

[Mark Galeotti @MarkGaleotti]

A good, solid takedown of not so much the silly "Narva is Next Narrative" as how it gets propagated; link in next tweet to my own take on the book that crystallised this unhelpful take

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

Okay. It could go many ways but for now, I’m going to call it:

Farage/Binface is one of the best things to happen in British politics in a long time.

[Kevin Rothrock @MrKevinRothrock]

any day now

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

Is it just me or is the level of Russia reporting in the UK getting much worse of late?

[Mark Galeotti @MarkGaleotti]

“Paranoid Putin increases personal security to 800 officers”, blares the Telegraph
Predictably dramatic headline for an article which manages to get the facts seriously wrong. In fact… 1/
https://t.co/gBoLFh0SyB

[J B @GreenBristolUp]

@britishmuseum despite being logged in and getting redirected to website to book Bayeux was asked to login again and sent to back of the queue now on over 4000 and presuming the same will happen again.
This is not what we expect

[Jim West 📚☕️✍️📖 @EmilBrunner1]

@britishmuseum hey the tapestry line is INSANE for members. was on. finally made it to purchase and kicked OFF and sent to the BACK OF THE LINE! what the devil?????

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

Can I make a suggestion @britishmuseum? You need to stop this, go back to the drawing board and relaunch when it actually works. Totally unreasonable that you can’t work a basic queuing system. A lot of the people you are screwing have been members for years.

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

British Museum handling the Bayeaux tapestry members booking with their trademark brand of incompetence. People waiting for hours to be kicked off @britishmuseum

[James Ferrari @james_ferrari]

.@britishmuseum I was in the queue for the Bayeux Tapestry and when I was finally let in, it just kicked me back to the queue. Went from a 10 minute wait to now over an hour wait.

Not happy.

[Kevin Rothrock @MrKevinRothrock]

Russia has collected 225B rub ($3.1B) in "voluntary contributions" from major businesses as of late May — a massive spike, up from just 15B rub at the start of the month — with 300B rub ($4.2B) expected by year-end. ↓

[The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent]

⚡️ BREAKING: EU formally approves 90 billion euros Ukraine loan, 20th package of Russia sanctions.

President Zelensky said the loan will "strengthen our army, make Ukraine more resilient, and enable us to fulfill our social obligations to Ukrainians."

https://t.co/LUPU6YD5pc

[Mark Galeotti @MarkGaleotti]

So the threats of Russian false flag ops and the like to prevent #Orbàn’s fall never materialised. They never were plausible, but also Moscow was quite sanguine about the risk. A short thread based on… 1/

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

I assume there are still backchannel negotiations and I appreciate the idea to apply pressure - but this is a two way street and I am pretty sure Iran will be willing to bet the US blinks first.

Hope I’m wrong.

[BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking]

Trump says US will "blockade" Strait of Hormuz after talks failed over Iran's "nuclear ambitions" - follow live https://t.co/SLGXy4izbl

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

You wonder when the Ukraine war ended so that Russia had any spare resources to threaten the EU.

Then you remember that Ukraine has held the entire weight of the Russian army for years.

Then, and maybe it’s just me being British, but you probably have a cup of tea.

[Max Bergmann @maxbergmann]

What's the plan, Europe? NATO has nothing. All the eggs are in the Trump basket. So what do you do when its 2028, 200k Russian troops are moved to the border of Baltic states, and Trump/US isn't going to lift a finger. What do you do?

[Dan Ridler @danielridler]

Maybe... but our sailors can take a shit without having to go to Crete.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 WATCH: Donald Trump says UK aircraft carriers are “toys” compared to US ones