Iteke

@ItekeG

Gelukkig in Frankrijk, manusje-van-alles. Dol op blauwe luchten: @iteke.bsky.social

Joined June 2013

1.2K Following

291 Followers

4.7K Posts

ItekeG retweeted

Femmy @Femmynv

2 days ago

Iemand deelde deze video met de beschrijving: ‘Trump die probeert de Straat van Hormuz te openen.’

Iteke @ItekeG

2 days ago

@locuta Zag net berichten dat het vrijwel zeker AI is (krant van 4 juni)

282

Iteke @ItekeG

3 days ago

@chrisklomp Ik denk dat ze coaching nodig heeft 🤔

Iteke @ItekeG

3 days ago

@HuubJ64 @Ingeborgvraagt

Who to follow

🇺🇦🌻 | ⚘🇵🇸 Max Le Velle「␦」

@Max_Lvll

'Did your conscience trouble you?' | #14, #34 | 'Nuance is not for the faint hearted.' | '..different flowers make a bouquet.' 🇪🇺 | 🌍 🙅🏿‍♂️ 😷

Barry

@BarryBlond

@BarryBlond@anywhereelse Tofu wokist 🍋🍋🍋 Hier veel aardiger dan thuis.

Ria de Vries

@RiadeVries2

Iteke @ItekeG

3 days ago

@JoJoFromJerz My favourite Chinese restaurant! Oh wait…

Iteke @ItekeG

5 days ago

@locuta

Iteke @ItekeG

5 days ago

@mmeeuw Nee, vergeet t maar met je barbecue in Zuid-Frankrijk

535

Iteke @ItekeG

5 days ago

@helenestafleu https://t.co/8jARXHpfYb

Iteke @ItekeG

5 days ago

@1974marjolein Sorry, is al op 😅

Iteke @ItekeG

6 days ago

@Simi_2210_ 20?

Iteke @ItekeG

6 days ago

@Isa_Yusibov Ik heb een serieuze vraag: waarom heeft Rusland eigenlijk nooit vol ingezet op Oekraïne? Als dat zo belangrijk voor ze is?

126

Iteke @ItekeG

7 days ago

@EricLDaugh So, apparently, you love war—until it comes to your doorstep.

Iteke @ItekeG

7 days ago

@robhoeij Prachtige foto!

Iteke @ItekeG

10 days ago

I've been following @Isa_Yusibov's analyses for quite some time now, and I've been consistently impressed by how many of his assessments have proven remarkably accurate over time. Interested in how @NATO, @SecGenNATO, @kajakallas and @DefensieMin assess this scenario.

Isa Yusibov 🇪🇺 🇳🇱 🇺🇦

@Isa_Yusibov

11 days ago

ANALYSIS: 🇷🇺🇺🇸🇱🇻🇱🇹🇪🇪🇪🇺 Russian threat in the Baltics and why comparing it to the war in Ukraine is wrong: As a geopolitical analyst, I have repeatedly warned for Putin's plans for the Baltics since 2022, even when Western intelligence services were assessing the possibility of such an incursion as highly unlikely, something they have fundamentally changed recently. The questions I get from my Dutch public about my stance are two-folded. On the one hand, people ask how Russia can instigate something like that while being stuck in Ukraine, on the other hand where Putin will get men and military material from to invade the Baltics. I had promised a brief analysis to tackle these questions, but given the importance of the topic, I have decided to write it for a broader public. In this analysis, I will try to answer these questions which are legit by nature, but still overlook some essential facts on the ground from Kremlin's perspective. First of all, a limited operation against NATO territory would have a completely different political and military objective than the war in Ukraine. By treating a potential Baltic contingency as a carbon copy of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, skeptics misinterpret how military mass, geographic scope, and strategic coercion interact. The primary flaw in the conventional reasoning is the assumption that Putin would need to conquer all three Baltic states or occupy them indefinitely. An operation of that scale would indeed require a massive mobilization of personnel and an extensive logistical network. But that's not what is looking for. He would only need to create a limited territorial fait accompli before NATO could respond decisively. Seizing a border town, a narrow land corridor like the Suwałki Gap, or strategically important infrastructure would require tens of thousands, not millions of troops. Once this limited territory is secured, the operation effectively shifts from a conventional land grab to a political crisis. By establishing a quick, localized presence and backing it with nuclear deterrence, Russia could force NATO into its hardest decision since its founding: escalate into a large-scale war with a nuclear power or negotiate. And that is EXACTLY what my point is. Not a conventional war, but a political crisis within the NATO with some open windows (no pun intended...) of opportunity. Ukraine is a war of conquest, fought over territorial control and national alignment. A limited incursion into NATO territory would instead be designed as a test of Alliance cohesion. Different goals, different strategies. If Moscow believes there is hesitation, political polarization, or paralysis within Western leadership, which I think is the case or is becoming the case very fast, the military requirements for an operation become much smaller. If the political will of the Alliance fractures, a small, highly localized military force is all that is required to achieve a massive strategic victory. Don't forget what the US government literally said: we won't come to the rescue but we can sell weapons to Europe to defend itself in the case of a Russian incursion. And then the question about: "which army?" A fundamental blind spot for skeptics is the assumption that Russia has committed its entire state and military apparatus to the war in Ukraine. No, it has not. In fact, Putin has explicitly avoided using its full military capacity, choosing instead to fight a massive conventional war while maintaining a delicate domestic social contract. The vast majority of the forces fighting and dying in Ukraine for Putin's fascist war are contract soldiers, volunteers, mobilized reservists, and convicts. Russia has intentionally shielded its core military structure, the standing, professional peacetime army and its massive annual influx of conscripts, from being consumed by the war. Every year, Russia inducts around 250,000 to 300,000 young men into mandatory one-year military service. By political design and legal decree, these conscripts are kept out of active combat zones in Ukraine. This means Russia retains a massive, untouched pool of hundreds of thousands of active-duty soldiers within its borders. They are trained, organized into units, and completely uncommitted to the Ukrainian front line. They represent a ready-made institutional foundation that can be mobilized for a rapid border operation without drawing a single soldier away from the Donbas. It is true that the war in Ukraine has tied down a significant portion of Russia's combat power, but it is a mistake to assume that every Russian unit is committed simultaneously. Russia continues to actively recruit new personnel, rotate its forces out of the combat zone to refit, expand its domestic defense production, and maintain capabilities in other military districts. Putin has also specifically reconstituted the Leningrad and Moscow military districts recently to optimize its forces on the NATO flank. Therefore, the relevant question is not whether Russia can open a second front on the scale of Ukraine, but whether it can generate sufficient combat power for a short, localized operation. When the geographic target is small and the timeline is highly compressed, that operational threshold becomes considerably lower. And then the question about: "with what weaponry?" The argument that Russia is "running out of weapons" conflates the ammunition and armor shortages on the Ukrainian front line with Russia's total industrial output. Moscow has successfully transitioned its economy to a wartime footing, and its defense industrial base is churlishly outproducing Western European states in several critical categories. There is a reason why Russia, for the first time in history, has appointed a MinDef who has 0 military background but comes from the economic sector. I have always emphasized the fact that a significant portion of newly manufactured and highly sophisticated material is not being sent to Ukraine; it is being stockpiled or funneled directly into the newly reconstituted Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts. Again, for a reason. Russia is actively producing and holding back advanced tier-one hardware that is poorly suited for the static trench warfare of the Donbas but perfectly designed for a confrontation with NATO. This includes highly sophisticated electronic warfare systems like the Krasukha-4, Murmansk-BN, and Leer-3. These systems are being manufactured in high volumes and deployed along the northern and western flanks to jam GPS networks and disrupt NATO communications. Similarly, Russia’s premier strategic air defense assets, such as the S-400 and the newer S-500 Prometheus systems, are not being destroyed in tactical skirmishes; they are being positioned to create dense bubbles over the Baltic states. Production lines for Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Kalibr cruise missiles, and tactical nuclear delivery systems continue to operate at a relentless pace. These assets are specifically preserved to provide the strategic and regional nuclear umbrella required to freeze NATO’s decision-making loop during a localized crisis as I have outlined above. So, in that sense, comparing the logistics of the Ukraine war to a Baltic scenario ignores critical geographic differences. In Ukraine, Russia attempted deep operational thrusts into a massive, hostile country, resulting in overextended and vulnerable supply lines. A localized Baltic incursion presents the exact opposite dynamic. Russia would operate on short interior lines of communication, launching a strike directly adjacent to its own mainland borders or from highly integrated staging grounds in Belarus if his buddy Lukashenko allows it. The lines of communication would be measured in tens of kilometers rather than hundreds. Moving and sustaining a force of tens of thousands across a contiguous border requires a fraction of the logistical tail, making the operation much easier to hide, prepare, and execute quickly. That does not necessarily mean such an operation would succeed fully. I do acknowledge that it would carry enormous risks for Russia, including the possibility of a unified NATO military response (which in my opinion is not going to happen, and that is the reason why I believe he will do it) But dismissing the possibility solely because Russia has not defeated Ukraine rests on a false analogy rather than a sound assessment of the military and political dynamics. More important, it skips a very important detail in my opinion: the combat readiness. Millions of brave Ukrainian men and women will do anything it takes to defend their homeland against Putin's imperial claws, as they have already demonstrated. But both the public opinion and the political system in Western Europe are not designed to fight a nuclear power. That is something Putin and his bloodthirsty entourage realise very well. END

$Isa_Yusibov's tweet photo. ANALYSIS: 🇷🇺🇺🇸🇱🇻🇱🇹🇪🇪🇪🇺 Russian threat in the Baltics and why comparing it to the war in Ukraine is wrong: As a geopolitical analyst, I have repeatedly warned for Putin's plans for the Baltics since 2022, even when Western intelligence services were assessing the possibility of such an incursion as highly unlikely, something they have fundamentally changed recently. The questions I get from my Dutch public about my stance are two-folded. On the one hand, people ask how Russia can instigate something like that while being stuck in Ukraine, on the other hand where Putin will get men and military material from to invade the Baltics. I had promised a brief analysis to tackle these questions, but given the importance of the topic, I have decided to write it for a broader public. In this analysis, I will try to answer these questions which are legit by nature, but still overlook some essential facts on the ground from Kremlin's perspective. First of all, a limited operation against NATO territory would have a completely different political and military objective than the war in Ukraine. By treating a potential Baltic contingency as a carbon copy of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, skeptics misinterpret how military mass, geographic scope, and strategic coercion interact. The primary flaw in the conventional reasoning is the assumption that Putin would need to conquer all three Baltic states or occupy them indefinitely. An operation of that scale would indeed require a massive mobilization of personnel and an extensive logistical network. But that's not what is looking for. He would only need to create a limited territorial fait accompli before NATO could respond decisively. Seizing a border town, a narrow land corridor like the Suwałki Gap, or strategically important infrastructure would require tens of thousands, not millions of troops. Once this limited territory is secured, the operation effectively shifts from a conventional land grab to a political crisis. By establishing a quick, localized presence and backing it with nuclear deterrence, Russia could force NATO into its hardest decision since its founding: escalate into a large-scale war with a nuclear power or negotiate. And that is EXACTLY what my point is. Not a conventional war, but a political crisis within the NATO with some open windows (no pun intended...) of opportunity. Ukraine is a war of conquest, fought over territorial control and national alignment. A limited incursion into NATO territory would instead be designed as a test of Alliance cohesion. Different goals, different strategies. If Moscow believes there is hesitation, political polarization, or paralysis within Western leadership, which I think is the case or is becoming the case very fast, the military requirements for an operation become much smaller. If the political will of the Alliance fractures, a small, highly localized military force is all that is required to achieve a massive strategic victory. Don't forget what the US government literally said: we won't come to the rescue but we can sell weapons to Europe to defend itself in the case of a Russian incursion. And then the question about: "which army?" A fundamental blind spot for skeptics is the assumption that Russia has committed its entire state and military apparatus to the war in Ukraine. No, it has not. In fact, Putin has explicitly avoided using its full military capacity, choosing instead to fight a massive conventional war while maintaining a delicate domestic social contract. The vast majority of the forces fighting and dying in Ukraine for Putin's fascist war are contract soldiers, volunteers, mobilized reservists, and convicts. Russia has intentionally shielded its core military structure, the standing, professional peacetime army and its massive annual influx of conscripts, from being consumed by the war. Every year, Russia inducts around 250,000 to 300,000 young men into mandatory one-year military service. By political design and legal decree, these conscripts are kept out of active combat zones in Ukraine. This means Russia retains a massive, untouched pool of hundreds of thousands of active-duty soldiers within its borders. They are trained, organized into units, and completely uncommitted to the Ukrainian front line. They represent a ready-made institutional foundation that can be mobilized for a rapid border operation without drawing a single soldier away from the Donbas. It is true that the war in Ukraine has tied down a significant portion of Russia's combat power, but it is a mistake to assume that every Russian unit is committed simultaneously. Russia continues to actively recruit new personnel, rotate its forces out of the combat zone to refit, expand its domestic defense production, and maintain capabilities in other military districts. Putin has also specifically reconstituted the Leningrad and Moscow military districts recently to optimize its forces on the NATO flank. Therefore, the relevant question is not whether Russia can open a second front on the scale of Ukraine, but whether it can generate sufficient combat power for a short, localized operation. When the geographic target is small and the timeline is highly compressed, that operational threshold becomes considerably lower. And then the question about: "with what weaponry?" The argument that Russia is "running out of weapons" conflates the ammunition and armor shortages on the Ukrainian front line with Russia's total industrial output. Moscow has successfully transitioned its economy to a wartime footing, and its defense industrial base is churlishly outproducing Western European states in several critical categories. There is a reason why Russia, for the first time in history, has appointed a MinDef who has 0 military background but comes from the economic sector. I have always emphasized the fact that a significant portion of newly manufactured and highly sophisticated material is not being sent to Ukraine; it is being stockpiled or funneled directly into the newly reconstituted Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts. Again, for a reason. Russia is actively producing and holding back advanced tier-one hardware that is poorly suited for the static trench warfare of the Donbas but perfectly designed for a confrontation with NATO. This includes highly sophisticated electronic warfare systems like the Krasukha-4, Murmansk-BN, and Leer-3. These systems are being manufactured in high volumes and deployed along the northern and western flanks to jam GPS networks and disrupt NATO communications. Similarly, Russia’s premier strategic air defense assets, such as the S-400 and the newer S-500 Prometheus systems, are not being destroyed in tactical skirmishes; they are being positioned to create dense bubbles over the Baltic states. Production lines for Iskander-M ballistic missiles, Kalibr cruise missiles, and tactical nuclear delivery systems continue to operate at a relentless pace. These assets are specifically preserved to provide the strategic and regional nuclear umbrella required to freeze NATO’s decision-making loop during a localized crisis as I have outlined above. So, in that sense, comparing the logistics of the Ukraine war to a Baltic scenario ignores critical geographic differences. In Ukraine, Russia attempted deep operational thrusts into a massive, hostile country, resulting in overextended and vulnerable supply lines. A localized Baltic incursion presents the exact opposite dynamic. Russia would operate on short interior lines of communication, launching a strike directly adjacent to its own mainland borders or from highly integrated staging grounds in Belarus if his buddy Lukashenko allows it. The lines of communication would be measured in tens of kilometers rather than hundreds. Moving and sustaining a force of tens of thousands across a contiguous border requires a fraction of the logistical tail, making the operation much easier to hide, prepare, and execute quickly. That does not necessarily mean such an operation would succeed fully. I do acknowledge that it would carry enormous risks for Russia, including the possibility of a unified NATO military response (which in my opinion is not going to happen, and that is the reason why I believe he will do it) But dismissing the possibility solely because Russia has not defeated Ukraine rests on a false analogy rather than a sound assessment of the military and political dynamics. More important, it skips a very important detail in my opinion: the combat readiness. Millions of brave Ukrainian men and women will do anything it takes to defend their homeland against Putin's imperial claws, as they have already demonstrated. But both the public opinion and the political system in Western Europe are not designed to fight a nuclear power. That is something Putin and his bloodthirsty entourage realise very well. END$