henrirene

[Marcos Agustín @marcosagusstinn]

🇬🇷 Greece’s actions are an act of profound disloyalty to Europe.

🔸 €256.6bn in assistance since 2010, the largest bailout in euro-area history

🔸Greece received around 69% of all bailout funds disbursed through the EFSF and ESM.

🔸 Greek bonds included in ECB pandemic purchases despite lacking investment-grade status

Athens is now opposing the EU’s 21st sanctions package to protect Greek shipping interests linked to Russian LNG.

Other countries accepted enormous economic costs and backed successive sanctions instead of paralysing Europe.

Europe must replace unanimity with qualified-majority voting.

[Robin Brooks @robin_j_brooks]

If you're interested in the role Greece played since Russia invaded Ukraine, @econ_harris and I have shown in @BrookingsInst research that half the shadow fleet was sold to Putin by Greek ship owners. The shadow fleet is a monster of the EU's own creation.
https://t.co/35WjW2Hyvx

[Dominik Hasek @hasek_dominik]

In other words, for the sake of a few hundred milions for a Greek businessman, Greece used its veto power and blocked the sanctions package. The fact that their decision will prolong the war and cost many lives is less important to Greece.

[toomas hendrik ilves @IlvesToomas]

This is Russia. Soldiers gloating over the deaths of European children they'd just shot down.

France and Italy think these soldiers should be able to come to Europe as tourists.

[Marcos Agustín @marcosagusstinn]

🇬🇷 Greece has enabled a deeply corrupt system that weakens Europe’s sanctions on Russia.

🔸 Greek shipowners have earned at least $3.8 billion carrying Russian oil since mid-2023.

🔸 Greek owners sold 127 ageing tankers that later entered Russia’s shadow fleet.

🔸 Greece’s largest shipping company controls a third of the Arc7 tankers serving Russia’s Yamal LNG project.

Greece is using the EU’s unanimity rule to delay sanctions targeting Russian banks, crypto networks, military companies and energy exports.

The EU’s unanimity rule is its greatest institutional weakness and must be abolished

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Divide and conquer. There's always one or two EU nations corrupt enough to block action against Russia, which is big reason Putin can keep the war on Ukraine going, and gives him hope to outlast the pressure.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Richard Gere: To have any kind of legitimacy, you have to rewrite history. Putin clearly is doing that, saying "There never was a Ukraine, there never was a Ukrainian language, there never was a Ukrainian culture. It's completely made up." Well, it's false.

Exactly what Chinese have done with Tibet, they said, "There never was a Tibet, there never was a Tibetan language, there never was a Tibetan culture." I mean, you have to destroy history to create legitimacy.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

All of it.

[Anders Åslund @anders_aslund]

As long as IOC favors war of aggression, war crimes and even genocide, it must be boycotted.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

I do not feel comfortable to say a word in defense of Trump's actions, but he should not be blamed for killing NATO. He has buried it, but the alliance effectively died when Obama in 2014 and, especially, Biden in 2022 refused to unleash its power to stop naked Russian aggression against free Europe -- the only purpose this organization was formed for back in 1949.

[Marko Mihkelson 🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 @markomihkelson]

Estonia has not issued tourist visas to Russians since 2022.

[henrirene @henrirene]

Just nuts!

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

The EU issued nearly half a million tourist visas to Russians in 2025.

Not to dissidents. Not to refugees. Tourist visas. For holidays. The highest number since Putin sent his army into Ukraine, up 10% on the year. France, proud, principled, morally unimpeachable France, raised its Russian approvals by 23% in a single year.

When the numbers got awkward, the EU did what the EU does. It deleted them. Russian visa statistics quietly vanished from the official Schengen tracker in early 2026. Eight countries had to formally demand they be put back.

They hid the data. Not the policy. The data.

Ten countries, the Nordics, the Baltics, and the Netherlands among them, had to write an actual letter to get this onto a ministers’ meeting agenda. The remaining seventeen apparently saw nothing strange about any of this.

No law is coming before summer. Because before any law can exist, there must first be a proposal. Before the proposal, a consultation. Before the consultation, a scoping exercise. Before the scoping exercise, a working group must be convened to determine whether a scoping exercise is appropriate. The working group requires terms of reference. The terms of reference must be approved by a subcommittee. The subcommittee reports to a committee. The committee feeds into a framework. The framework informs a roadmap. The roadmap gets amended seventeen times and renamed a “strategic pathway.” The strategic pathway is then circulated to member states for comment. France requests more time. The whole thing goes back to the working group.

Any legislation won’t pass before 2027. Possibly 2031, if Italy has a strong summer season.

Ukraine is entering year five. Russians are entering Italy.

Four years of sanctions packages, candlelit solidarity vigils, and solemn declarations about European values, and Paris increased its Russian tourist approvals by nearly a quarter.

The EU didn’t fail to stop the missiles. It didn’t even try to stop the sunbathing.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

I asked a local councillor if the russian refinery here in Ireland should be sanctioned.

He said yes, if it was supplying Israel.
But Russia? No.

This is Ireland’s sanctions hypocrisy in 90 seconds.

[John Marston @Marston1889]

Caolan is doing an amazing job exposing just how deep Russian influence is in the EU and it has to end once and for all.

[Anatoly Karlin 🧲💯 @akarlin]

Putin has built something like the precise inverse of brain drain - not reverse brain drain (where smarts repatriate), but a phenomenon in which the most useless, low IQ, pedophilic, etc. foreign elements are attracted to it like moths to a flame.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

For weeks, Irish politicians have dodged questions about the refinery in Ireland supplying Russia’s war machine.

So I tracked down government minister Niall Collins at a farming show.

He refuses to back sanctions & his stance was worse than I expected.

Avoidance.

[Henrik Dahl @SociologenHD]

I have a hard time imagining a less suitable person.

Angela Merkel vetoed Ukraine’s admission to NATO in 2008. She thought it was a good idea to buy gas from Russia. She thought it was a good idea to shut down nuclear power in Germany. She thought it was a good idea to sign up to spending 2 percent of GDP on defense — and then ran away from the commitment. She thought it was a good idea to invite hundreds of thousands of more or less dubious refugees to Europe. And on top of that, she believed that “Handel” would lead to positive “Wandel”.

There is no single individual who has exposed Europe to greater risks since the fall of the Berlin Wall than Angela Merkel.

[Michael MacKay @mhmck]

The russia-backed Trump regime broke its agreement to sell HIMARS rocket salvo systems to Estonia.

Given the United States is now an enemy, Canada would be insane to proceed with the purchase of F-35 fighter jets.

[Maria Drutska 🇺🇦 @maria_drutska]

Macron said this is a unique moment that should not be underestimated, as the leaders of the US, Russia, and China are aligned against Europe.

This is the time for Europe to wake up.

[Popular Liberal 🇺🇸 @PopularLiberal]

HUMILIATING GOP MELTDOWN CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Rand Paul just pulled the chair out from under Marco Rubio in the Senate hearing — and the hypocrisy exploded in real time.

Rand drops the hammer:
“If another country bombed our air defenses, captured and removed our President on U.S. soil… would THAT be okay?”

Rubio freezes. He starts frantically erasing his notes, forgets how to breathe, and looks like a Trump sycophant who just realized he sold his soul for nothing.

Rand reminds him point-blank:
Congress declares war.
Congress controls the checkbook.
That Constitution you swore an oath to?

GOP loves executive power when Trump’s doing regime change abroad.
But flip the script? Suddenly it’s not so sexy.

Rubio couldn’t even choke out “NO.”
He couldn’t defend the endless foreign adventures he’s been selling for years.

Our tax dollars. Their cowardice.

This isn’t politics.
This is a bought-and-paid-for senator auctioning off the Constitution for donor dinners and Fox News applause.

GOP in power = rules for thee, but never for me.