The recent Starlink / Starshield incident in Ukraine has created a dangerous precedence for the US export industry, many haven't yet grasped. The sudden deactivation respectively curtailing of those systems without warning not only cost precious lives, but also equipment worth millions.
Though the blame game between the White House (Trump) and SpaceX (Musk) is going on, ultimately it doesn't matter. It showed the world that the USA are not a reliable partner any more. Pointing at some obscure "violation of terms of services" without providing the exact passage are just increasing that notion that this was a political move.
The explanation that Starlink must not be used for "offensive" means is nonsense, too. Starlink has never been turned on over Russia, and using it in Ukraine is by definition defensive in nature. You can even argue that hitting Russian targets in Russia is defensive, since you don't have to wait for an attack to be conducted. Even the intention is enough to warrant action and to eliminate the threat at the source. But this is a different topic.
Furthermore, SpaceX has been fully aware that its Starlink terminals are being used by Ukrainian forces. Especially when considering that Ukraine only recently had to white-list their Starlink terminals for the Ukrainian military so that Russian forces, who have been abundantly using Starlink as well, were locked out. It has always been clear that those Starlink terminals are used for and by the Ukrainian military, and Ukraine has always been thankful for that.
Coming up with this bogus story, now, three weeks before midterms is therefore as transparent as it is shameless. It is obvious for everyone that this was just figleaf statement so that a political agenda can be pushed, an agenda which runs counter to the strategic nationalist interests of the USA, both political and economic.
And this is the real scandal. It is not new that the US had to lock out its technology or supplies to nations with which it had previously good and even cordial relation. Iran under the Shah, South-Vietnam and Cuba before Castro are just three to name it. But as you can see from them, it made perfectly sense back then. Those nations switched sides or disappeared altogether.
Ukraine on the other hand didn't switch sides and even helped the US in the most recent and botched Iran war, despite being short on ammunition itself. The Ukrainian government accepted every possible compromise and offered an unconditional ceasefire from the start. Russia on the hand refused all of it and is demanding surrender. Yet, it gets this treatment? Unbelievable.
This will be noted by all clients around the globe who purchase US weapons and technology. If agreements are not honored and can unilaterally and even clandestinely be altered based on the whims of a few, who only follow their own motives or election lies, then the all concept reliability falls apart.
Whether it is Starlink, the F-35, Tomahawk missiles or HIMARS. All those systems run on software and in many cases can only properly operate with recent updates. You don't even need have a kill switch. You can only refuse to update and many of those systems lose more than 90% of their effectiveness within a short period, making worthless.
This is why we see the blame game between Musk and Trump. I'm sure that people around those guys told them how absolutely shortsighted and stupid this step was. It will fall back on the entire US industry. Not even those two guys are worth that losses and backlash. A functional US Congress would immediately start subpoenas and hearings, asking questions in order to mitigate the damage, but here we are.
Trump and Musk have given the best reason why not to buy American. Customers - governmental and private alike - around the globe will take note of this and act accordingly, and I wouldn't be surprised if this won't be limited to US military products only. An absolutely senseless and avoidable own goal.
شكرا شكرا شكرا لكل الزعران اللي رفعوا العلم الفلسطيني بفرنسا، وكسروا وخربوا باسم "فلسطين حرة"!
إسرائيل من سنين بتحاول تشرح للعالم شو يعني تتعامل مع العنف والتطرف والهمجية.
وإنتوا، ببلاش، عملتوا إلها أكبر حملة إعلامية.
عنجد، خدمة ما كنا نحلم فيها!
شكرا!!!
„Stoppt Kürzungen in der Bildung!“ - Ja. Bin ich dabei, unterstütze ich.
„Stoppt die Wehrpflicht!“ - Nein. Die Weltlage erfordert, dass wir wehrfähig und, ja, leider, kriegstüchtig sind. Wer aus Gewissensgründen verweigern möchte, kann das dem Grundgesetz zufolge tun; das gilt natürlich auch in Zukunft. Und muss dann eben Ersatzdienst leisten, auch das braucht unsere Gesellschaft.
„Wir fordern ein bezahlbares Leben!“ - Ähm, ja, wir alle, Ihr Lieben, wir alle. Aber sagt das doch bitte den Herren Trump, Putin, den lieben Mullahs und den freundlichen Huthis, die können sicher helfen, das Leben wieder günstiger zu machen, indem sie sich selbst gehackt legen.
P. S.: All das kann man völlig ohne Gewalt fordern.
P. P. S.: Um für all das zu demonstrieren und ernsthaftes Interesse bei anderen zu wecken, bedarf es keiner einzigen Palästina-Flagge.
To put it bluntly: According to the latest "peace plan" from street-huckster Wittkop and the Kremlin...
🇺🇦 Ukraine must:
• Withdraw its troops from the Donetsk region
• Abandon plans to join NATO
🇪🇺 Europe must:
• Resume the purchase of Russian energy resources
• Admit Ukraine into the EU
🇷🇺 Russia must:
• Do nothing
🇺🇸 The USA must:
• Do nothing
In exchange, Ukraine is expected to relinquish the territories occupied by Russia, receiving in return security guarantees described as being "similar to NATO’s Article 5." Given the current conduct of the US administration, however, many no longer even have faith in Article 5 itself—let alone in "similar" guarantees.
In short: This is not a peace plan; it is a word that begins with "capit" and ends with "ulation."
And it represents a capitulation not only for Ukraine but also for Europe—which, under this plan, Trump intends to bring completely to its knees before the USA and Russia.
Früher saßen gefrustete und verhärmte Rentner mit Kissen unter den Ellbogen am Fenster und haben spielende Kinder verscheucht oder Falschparker angezeigt. Heute plustern sie sich bei X auf, um irgendwie zu kompensieren, dass sie den Anschluss an die Gegenwart verloren haben.
Unter dem Deckmantel der Fischerei betreiben russische Zivilschiffe offenbar systematische Aufklärung an den vitalen Unterseekabeln zwischen Europa und den USA. Über viereinhalb Jahre hinweg wurden mehr als 500 verdächtige Manöver registriert, bei denen Trawler stundenlang mit extrem niedriger Geschwindigkeit über kritischen Kommunikationsverbindungen wie Atlantic Crossing 1 kreuzten.
Marineexperten vermuten den Einsatz von Hochpräzisions-Sonar und Unterwasserfahrzeugen zur Kartografierung des Meeresbodens für zukünftige Sabotageakte.
Es gibt kein einziges ziviles Projekt aus Russland, dem man noch trauen kann. Russland ist zu einer Gefahr für die gesamte internationale Gemeinschaft geworden.
🚨🚨🚨MASSIVE SCANDAL!!! There’s now peer-reviewed evidence proving political bias in X’s algorithm!!!
The below 2026 study found that X’s practice of switching users from “chronological” to “algorithmic” feed massively increases their exposure to conservative political content.
That is evidence of algorithmic amplification of pro-Trump & pro-MAGA content while suppressing pro-Democratic content — just weeks before the most consequential midterm election in our history.
Here’s the study: The political effects of X’s NEW feed algorithm.
https://t.co/9V9JwqKdpU
“Putin: The latest genetic studies show that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.”
So Putin is now not only an exposer of hidden truths about history, but also a great geneticist and skull measurer!
And there will be idiots who listen to this with their mouths hanging open and believe this nonsense from an uneducated mafia bureaucrat from the Soviet KGB, who thinks ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity -- and national belonging -- are determined by DNA.
By that logic, he is “one people” with anyone on Earth, including the Indigenous people of Easter Island. Does he also feel entitled to deny their right to exist as a people?
Then again, what do I expect from people who, not so long ago, were claiming that Ukrainian “biolabs” were developing a biological weapon that kills “only ethnic Russians”?
🚨🚨BREAKING: Dolly Parton’s sister, Stella Parton, says a Tennessee voting machine repeatedly switched her selection to Republican Marsha Blackburn, forcing her to correct her ballot THREE TIMES before voting. She’s not alone. Other Tennessee voters have reported similar problems while attempting to vote for Democrats.
In Kharkiv today, russia struck an ordinary commuter train.
Killing kids, striking markets, Killing dogs, burning trains - everything is possible if you are a great "humanitarian"
The Russians tortured 500 people in Bucha.
The Russians tortured children in Bucha.
The Russians tortured dogs in Bucha.
The Russians killed animals in Bucha.
In Bucha, the Russians used military vehicles to hunt people—turning it into a game.
People ran, the Russians fired, they hunted them down, playing games.
And this didn’t just happen in Bucha.
Trump and his mafia gang call this "humanitarian."
What do you call it?
James Talarico: “I would ask [Ken Paxton] how he increased his net worth by $27M as a public employee. I would ask him how he owns 15 homes on a government salary. I would ask him why he was impeached by his own party and reported to the FBI by his own staff. And I would ask him why he’s taking bribes from wealthy donors while he blocks our overtime pay and guts our healthcare”
There were reports on efforts to deal with the aftermath of Russian attacks on our cities and communities.
Overnight, Russia used, among other weapons, three ballistic missiles with cluster warheads against Kyiv. These missiles are designed to detonate in the air as they approach their targets, spreading damage across an area 400 meters in diameter.
One of them struck Pechersk, Kyiv's historic center, hitting the area between the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Holy Presentation Monastery.
Monastery buildings, homes, shops, cafés, and other civilian infrastructure were damaged.
This is another extraordinarily revealing strike – revealing because it was no accident. The choice of weapon was deliberate, the choice of target area was deliberate, and so was the intent to inflict as much loss and damage on civilians as possible. There was no military target nearby, not even in theory, and the weapon was designed to cause widespread destruction. Russia has not changed the way it wages this war, and it is taking no steps that would signal a genuine desire to end it.
Throughout the day, air raid alerts have continued in Kyiv and many other cities. So have the strikes. In Kharkiv, a regular commuter train was hit. Dnipro, Marhanets, Mykolaiv, and Kherson, as well as cities and villages in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Rivne regions, came under attack.
Russia keeps targeting our energy infrastructure. Since October 11, there have been more than 170 strikes on critical energy facilities, even though we are shooting down a significant number of “shaheds” and some of the missiles. I thank all our friends around the world who are helping us restore our energy system.
Our intelligence services report that Russia has set priorities for further terror against Ukrainians in the coming weeks. Russia is clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air defense supplies from our partners. It is equally clear that when some partners ease the pressure on Russia, it only reinforces Putin's belief that his goals are within reach. We need different signals and different steps – stronger ones.
I have instructed the Ministry of Defense, together with the military command and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to brief our partners on every aspect of the real situation and the threats we face, based on intelligence data. It is important to speed up deliveries of defense packages that have already been approved. I thank all the leaders and countries that are helping!
It’s now officially confirmed.
Tonight, russia struck Kyiv’s historic centre with an Iskander ballistic missile carrying a cluster warhead.
58 submunitions explode in mid-air, designed to inflict maximum casualties across a 400 × 400 metre area.
“This strike had no military purpose. The goal was to destroy part of the old city and injure as many people as possible,” said a Ukrainian presidential adviser.
No military objective. Just terror.
Bucha. It was a genocide, recognized by everyone. They buried hundreds of people. They tortured people. We found the grave. There were, I believe, around 500 people. When we liberated those towns near Kyiv, there emerged this, you know, this kind of hatred for the Russians, right at that moment. Not even at the moment when they started the full-scale war. Back then nobody understood what it really was yet. People understood what this war was and what Putin did personally when we found those mass graves of tortured adults, children. I mean they didn't just kill them, they tortured and killed them.
When we liberated Bucha, I said, bring every journalist here. Don't touch anything, just bring the journalists. The whole world simply has to see this. Imagine finding a mass grave in the U.S. or in Britain, God forbid, with 500 tortured people, adults, kids, dogs, animals shot dead. I mean, they held hunting sprees there from military vehicles. People were running, they were shooting, just hunting, playing games. They literally just played with people, like slavery. So how, after this, can you listen to Putin? And how, after this, can you forgive?
From The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett. (2/3)