Yuri Bundouri

[Yuri Bundouri @krainiak]

@MedvedevRussia Это через VPN, или для этого поста Россия разблокировала твиттер?

[Daniel Szeligowski @dszeligowski]

Mój punkt widzenia, krótko:

1. Prezydent Zełenski kierował się wyłącznie względami polityki wewnętrznej. Negocjuje nowy "pakt o nieagresji", a takowy wymaga wyjścia naprzeciw żądaniom innych, rosnących w siłę frakcji

2. Nie uznał za zasadne w jakimkolwiek stopniu uwzględnić ewentualną reakcję Polski, ponieważ:
a) nowy taktyczny sojusz to w tej chwili absolutny priorytet, polityka wewnętrzna ma pierwszeństwo
b) Polska nie budowała systemowo swojego wpływu na Ukrainie i ma ograniczone możliwości podnoszenia mu kosztów politycznych

3. Nie zadziałał mechanizm korekcji decyzji przez osoby świadome konsekwencji dla stosunków z Polską, ponieważ w sprawach wewnętrznych to nie oni doradzają

4. W reakcji obronnej na polskie oburzenie zadziałał natomiast mechanizm jednoczenia się wokół flagi, wskutek czego po stronie Zełenskiego stanęła zarówno frakcja "patriotyczna", jak i "liberalna"

5. Zmiana decyzji przez prezydenta Zełenskiego jest mniej niż mało prawdopodobna, ponieważ: a) polityka wewnętrzna ma pierwszeństwo; b) zadziałał mechanizm jednoczenia się wokół flagi

6. Ukraina zanurza się w populistycznym suwerenizmie, stawiając coraz częściej niezgrabny znak równości między rosyjskimi a zachodnimi próbami wpływania na nią (czytaj: suwerenni i od Moskwy, i od Brukseli). To sprawia, że dotychczasowy mechanizm kija/marchewki zaczyna przynosić skutki odwrotne od zamierzonych - tylko usztywnia ukraińskie stanowisko

7. Odkładając emocje na bok, kwestie zasadnicze to:
a) jak odpowiedzieć umiejętnie z uwagi na populistyczny suwerenizm i mechanizm jednoczenia się wokół flagi (inaczej prezydent Zełenski zostanie politycznym obrońcą interesów frakcji "patriotycznej");
b) jak systemowo budować instrumenty wpływu, by w przyszłości jakikolwiek prezydent Ukrainy musiał przynajmniej wziąć pod uwagę ewentualną reakcję Polski

Punktu 7. celowo nie rozwijam

[Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien]

Latest in @TheAtlantic . The Ukrainians are no longer pretending that Donald Trump's USA is their friend. Their honesty is important as they seem to understand how much Trump is helping Putin and therefore how important it is that Europe stick together. Gift link. https://t.co/cJMTC2ppDJ

[Francisco García @Fran_actua]

Tras 3 años usando Chat GPT me he pasado a Claude y puedo decir que ha multiplicado 10x mi productividad.

Aquí tienes 10 prompts que uso a diario que han transformado mi vida cotidiana y podrían hacer lo mismo por ti:

(Guarda esto antes de que se te pierda🧵).

[Doug Madory (also on Bluesky) @DougMadory]

On Feb-4, @Starlink disabled terminals in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine that weren't on Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's approved list.

We saw a 75% drop in Starlink traffic to Ukraine as a result. 🤯
https://t.co/Qzbrpl6DjD

[Yuri Bundouri @krainiak]

@MID_RF Кто направил русские ракеты в детскую больницу Киева?

[Meaghan Mobbs @mobbs_mentality]

Many of us tried to raise the alarm in conservative circles and it either fell on deaf ears or folks lacked the moral courage to swim upstream given the size of his platform.

There are some notable exceptions - @benshapiro, @DouglasKMurray, @yhazony, @MeghanMcCain, @danielhoffmanDC, @marcthiessen - that immediately come to mind.

[U.S. Ambassador to NATO @USAmbNATO]

As we work toward a deal, we are ensuring Ukraine has the tools to defend its sovereignty. Allies are stepping up by purchasing world-class U.S. equipment to provide Ukraine the defense capabilities they need.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

We are now at a stage when Trump calls NATO nations putting troops on the territory of a NATO ally a threat to world peace. Actually he calls Denmark putting troops on Denmark’s own sovereign soil a threat to world peace:
“Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown. This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable.”

[Yuri Bundouri @krainiak]

@mobbs_mentality Because during the war the executive authorities did everything it could to make the role of parliament as minimal as possible. So it doesn’t matter

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas privately told lawmakers the state of the world meant it might be a “good moment” to start drinking.

https://t.co/CFgENL6U6S

[Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK]

“Why would Ukraine seek to ban this organisation?”, is a question only the most exceedingly stupid Westerners would ask.

[Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio]

Maduro is NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government. Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization which has taken possession of a country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.

[Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof]

You know who has corruption scandals? Countries that have the rule of law, where corruption is scandalous rather than the accepted way of doing business, and is therefore independently investigated and publicized.

[(TCAG) Командир Бред Кроуфорд (CDR Brad Crawford) @evo1tactical]

Real talk. I have trained Ukrainian troops for three years straight, and saying we “owe them nothing” is not just wrong, it is dangerous.

People forget very quickly. Ukraine stood with us in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sent troops, bled beside our soldiers, and never asked for anything in return. They did it because they believed in the West, in democracy, and in the idea that free nations stand together.

And now, for four years, Ukraine has been fighting the enemy that has openly wished death on the United States many times. The same enemy that still keeps nuclear weapons pointed at every major American city and every piece of critical infrastructure we depend on. How anyone can say that their fight has nothing to do with us is beyond me.

This kind of talk is exactly what Americans were saying before World War Two. We called it “not our war.” We insisted Europe’s problems were not our problems. Yet we still sent equipment. We still had volunteer pilots fighting for the United Kingdom. And it took Pearl Harbor to finally wake us up and show us that isolation and indifference were mistakes that cost countless lives.

When will we learn that in the world we live in today, everything is connected. There is no isolation. Not when dictators are reshaping borders by force. Not when war criminals hold nuclear stockpiles. Not when democracies fall one by one if no one helps. Appeasement does not stop tyrants. Appeasement encourages them.

I have trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. I have watched them fight for their land, their families, and frankly for the rest of us. To pretend that their struggle does not affect the United States is to ignore every lesson history has ever taught us. The red line where this “becomes our problem” was crossed a long time ago. Thinking otherwise only helps the people we should be standing against.

This kind of thinking is not realism. It is the beginning of another disaster we will regret later.

If America actually wants stability and peace, we cannot abandon a nation fighting the front line of that global struggle.

We either help now, or we will pay a heavier price later.

[Anton Barbashin @ABarbashin]

Okay then

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

Questions I would ask at this stage:

1. Where is Rubio? Where is State? Rubio said the other day Putin's position is unchanged and suggested any prospect for peace was remote, an assessment echoed by Richard Moore. Rubio is Acting NSA, and so his lack of input here is telling. Is he purposefully letting Witkoff fly this plane into a mountain again, as he did in Alaska, or is he too busy with Venezuela to care?

2. Yermak's cozying up to Witkoff is quite revealing, as is the fact that Witkoff canceled his Turkey trip -- evidently because he was not acquainted with the full scale and scope of the Ukrainian corruption scandal now threatening to end Yermak's overlong political career. (There's a shocker: Witkoff was uninformed.) Yermak using Dim Philby to save his own hide by negotiating terms that aren't exactly transparent to all in Kyiv would be an ignominious sideshow to this whole circus, but wholly in keeping with Yermak's style.

3. Trump today said he is "disappointed" in Putin and vented about the difficulty of ending the war. This is an odd thing to say when you're an emotional toddler without a verbal filter and you have just handed the keys to the kingdom to Putin, according to anonymous sources quoted in the U.S. media. Does Trump even know what's in this 28-point plan? Does he know there is a 28-point plan? Does he care?

4. The administration has expended a great deal of energy of late telling the Europeans what to do: arm, pay up, impose 100% tariffs on India and China for importing Russian oil, further eliminate European dependency on Russian oil, do more sanctions on the shadow fleet, etc, etc. State just approved $105m in Patriot sustainment to Ukraine and $500m via PURL to the Nordics and Balts. Yesterday, Grynkewich allowed ATACMS to be fired into Russia and for the first time Kyiv acknowledged that development. The UK just resupplied Ukraine with more Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which it won't have done without Washington's approval. (The Kremlin now evidently insists on eliminating all long-range missiles from Ukraine's arsenal.) And yet... it's "Fuck the Europeans, we're going it alone with Moscow."

Smiley is suspicious, Percy.

This is something the U.S. simply cannot do even if it wanted to because there are limits to what an autocratic president can achieve (or perpetrate) unilaterally. I've commented before on Congressional approval for lifting CAATSA-certified sanctions on Russia, and how concomitant without EU sanctions relief the Russian economy does not rebound. Moreover, Republicans have rebuffed Trump on Epstein and Brazil and they're rightly worried how he's leading them into an electoral slaughterhouse in the midterms. Ukraine is not Gaza, and Russia is not Israel, where the U.S. had/has enormous leverage in the form of military aid and diplomatic cover. There is nothing concrete in any of the reporting on what Ukraine or Europe or indeed the U.S. might get out of this scheme, apart from mushy rhetoric on "security guarantees." NATO diplomatic and military planes must leave Ukraine? ZSU must reduce itself by 250%? All Donbas goes to Russia and Ukraine must legally certify the land grab, plus Crimea? This is parodically maximalist, invites more war in the immediate future, and has absolutely no chance of being agreed to in Kyiv or Brussels. Or Warsaw, which is preparing for the next war and will bear the brunt of this sell-out on its periphery, and which just suffered a Russian intelligence attack on its rail system.

5. Using the U.S. press corps to launder a FUBAR "framework" as some signed, sealed and delivered policy proposal when it may only be the brainchild of one braindead American diplomat and one desperate Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO would be very on brand for the Kremlin. And it would be very on-brand for the U.S. press corp to work itself into a lather over this: see the copy filed on the Budapest summit that wasn't. Already there are indications of comms manipulation. Dmitriev, for instance, claimed in Axios to have hung out with Witkoff for three days in Miami last month. Uh, no he didn't. This is easily checked in the open source and shown to be an exaggeration. What else might Dmitriev be exaggerating? And is it perhaps worth inquiring why a man described as a forgettable "propagandist" by the U.S. Treasury Secretary only a few weeks ago is now very chatty to Western journalists that peace is upon us and there's not a damned thing Ukraine can do about it?

[Joe Wilson @RepJoeWilson]

The Russian Orthodox Church is not a separate religious organization but an extension of the Russian state. Evangelizing is illegal in Russia and Christians are targeted and killed in Ukraine. Members should not entertain this intelligence operation.

https://t.co/Ma9O1FTFlM

[Nico Lange @nicolange_]

This week, the German intelligence community spoke remarkably openly about the threat posed by Russia.

Here are the 10 most important findings from the German foreign intelligence service, domestic intelligence service, and military counterintelligence service:

1. Russia's goals are to undermine NATO and destabilize European democracies. Russia will not shy away from military confrontation with NATO.

2. Russia is attempting to manipulate elections in Germany. Russia is relying on propaganda and disinformation, provocation, intimidation, sabotage, contract killings, espionage, and airspace violations.

3. The intelligence services must be allowed to become more operational and take greater risks. This urgently requires changes to the legal framework.

4. Russia is acting aggressively, offensively, and increasingly escalating in Germany. Russia is the main instigator of the preparation and implementation of sabotage operations in Germany.

5. Russia is exploiting “scenes of discontent,” e.g., the “Reichsbürger” movement, to spread its narrative and exert influence. The goal is to divide European societies.

6. German intelligence services must become defense services that not only observe threats but also counter them.

7. Russia is now highly active in infiltrating the German armed forces and undermining the stability of NATO.

8. Russia threatens our security. Germany must prepare for a long-term confrontation and finally strengthen its defense capabilities.

9. Russia's ongoing cognitive warfare against Germany requires action in the here and now instead of waiting for a formal state of open conflict.

10. Germany must move from reactive observation of Russia to an initiative-taking, defensive, and nationwide defense strategy.

[Dave Brown @dave_brown24]

This is a Russian missile cruiser