Caolan Robertson is probably the best investigative journalist on X right now - follow him!
Also huge thanks to NAFO and Irish investigative journalists digging deeper into this case.
Rusal needs to go!
This is Oleh.
He was 2.
russia decided that was enough.
A missile hit his home, killing Oleh, his mother, and 14 neighbors.
He never saw peace.
Never started school.
Never had a future.
His life ended before it began.
Then in 2022, Aughinish Alumina was given €2.1 million in public funding to treat the 'red mud' waste product site. Seriously, what the hell is going on?
The Irish public subsidized the Russian Aluminium industry after Russia invaded Ukraine. This is appalling!
3/3
Irish politicians are avoiding questions about Aughinish. Patrick O’Donovan refuses to answer my calls. The refinery is in his constituency
He says the Russian owned plant is not connected to Russia’s war machine, without showing evidence. They want this to blow over. It won’t
This is not a movie about meteor showers before the apocalypse; this is Russia bombing Kyiv last night. A city with several million people in it - children, the elderly, and normal families just like yours.
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.
This is not World War II footage.
This is Toretsk, Ukraine — and it’s not as far away as you think.
A city that once had over 30,000 residents. Now almost completely erased.
There is no excuse for this. None.
Every sign at this refinery in Ireland is in russian. The official website is a .RU domain.
There’s no reason to hide it because local politicians are openly doing it for them.
Ireland’s Aughinish Alumina is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal. In Q1 2026, 83% of Irish-made alumina exports went to Russia. Just 0,6% went to EU states.
At the moment, shipping EU-made alumina to Russia is still legal.
This needs to change: the EU should ban the sale, supply, transfer and export of alumina and aluminium oxide to Russia, directly or indirectly, including through intermediaries and third countries.
Thank you #NAFO for promoting this important topic!
Imagine spending 18 months preparing one operation.
Then imagine watching dozens of Russian strategic aircraft burn because it worked.
One year of absolutely meticulous planning, intelligence work, logistics, and operational security led to this moment.
Operation Spiderweb will be studied for years.
One of the most terrible things we will have to face in the future is learning, one way or another, how many people died in Mariupol in the spring of 2022, when Russia was leveling the city to the ground along with its inhabitants.
Among them were my former classmate and the father of a good friend of mine.
And how many more remain unknown to us, lying in the vast anonymous mass graves on the outskirts of Mariupol, visible even in satellite images.
Every day, ships leave this russian owned factory in Ireland straight for St Petersburg carrying thousands of tonnes of raw alumina for the war machine.
There’s corruption everywhere. Locals tell me politicians are bought by oligarchs.
Ireland is no longer militarily neutral.
When this war is over, and Ukraine is victorious and whole again, and every innocent victim, every fallen defender, every destroyed city and town is documented, let no one say they did not know. These Russian crimes against humanity are happening in full view in real time.
“Liberated,” they said.
Imagine an entire European town wiped off the map.
This is Bakhmut.
Once home to 70,000. More than two years under the “russkiy mir.”
Today — nothing but ruins.
russia doesn’t liberate cities. It erases them. Don’t pretend you don’t understand this.
Because russia is failing militarily in Ukraine it conducted a massive terrorist attack against Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine.
Now we must stand firm behind the Ukrainian defenders and enable them to finish the job. Rage donate if you can! https://t.co/EJeOfTyuvx @69thSB