Maxim Tucker

Ukraine, Russia, eastern Europe @TheTimes. Filmmaker. Watch: The Starlink Hack that Fooled Russian Forces:

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

We gained exclusive access to Ukrainian cyberwarfare specialists and front line intelligence officers for our new @thetimes documentary, The Starlink Hack That Fooled Russian Forces... 1/

[Thomas C. Theiner @noclador]

4.5 years in and France, Italy, and the UK keep producing Aster missiles at anemic rates... which of course means that no sane nation should buy SAMP/T, because as Ukraine found out: air defence systems without missiles are useless.

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

Our short documentary on how Ukrainian troops are using @SpaceX’s help to decimate Russian forces and drive them back now has over 500k views and counting. You can watch it here: https://t.co/4gZyolRop5

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

We gained exclusive access to Ukrainian cyberwarfare specialists and front line intelligence officers for our new @thetimes documentary, The Starlink Hack That Fooled Russian Forces... 1/

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Follow the money on this one. It is rotten to the core.

The Pentagon just lent $620,000,000 to a tiny North Carolina startup called Vulcan Elements. The company is two years old.

It had fewer than 50 employees.

And three months before the deal was announced, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture firm quietly took a stake in it.

Here is the part the administration tried to bury.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was weighing, Vulcan was the only deal initiated by a top White House aide. That aide was Peter Navarro, a close friend of Trump Jr. The order came down to move fast.

One official put it plainly: The call came from the White House. We have to get this done.

Staff worked late nights to push it through in weeks. Deals like this normally take many months of vetting. And when it closed, Vulcan’s valuation jumped from about 200 million dollars to roughly 2 billion.

A windfall for the investors, including the president’s son.

This is public money. Your money.

Routed through the Pentagon to enrich the president’s family and their friends. The Bush administration’s own chief ethics lawyer called it corruption we pay for.

And there is more coming.

A drone parts company Trump Jr. holds a stake in is also under Pentagon review.

This is not a one-off. It is a pattern. The president’s family is treating the federal Treasury like a private bank, and the bill lands on every taxpayer.

https://t.co/4kB1cZNmlE

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

@connellyandrew @guardian Does seem like that. Frustrating puff piece when some of us have fought with his expensive PR/legal team to try and give at least an inkling of what he’s really like

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

Surprised by this @guardian piece crediting the man behind decades of Kremlin influence (that pervades in Ukraine to this day) with resisting Russia. Story doesn’t mention the pile of bodies that paved his way to the top and the suspicious deaths that kept his secrets after the Maidan revolution. You can read about some of them here: https://t.co/XSlIpMednT

[Nick Ames @NickAmes82]

Rare, exclusive in-person interview with Rinat Akhmetov - Shakhtar owner and Ukraine’s richest man - at his home in Kyiv. On Donbas in the 90s, the defenders of Azovstal, his relationship with Zelenskyy, why Infantino must visit Ukraine and much more: https://t.co/IA8qHU9wNE

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

For four hours he crossed minefields, trenches and drone-filled skies through one of the fiercest battle zones in Ukraine. Near Ukrainian lines, a Russian drone spotted him and dropped a grenade...
You can read his story in full here: https://t.co/C16OJ7iJUW photos by @ratynskki

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

In Kyiv for @thetimes, I spoke to a Russian drone operator who walked six miles through a battlefield to defect to Ukraine.
Not just any soldier — a member of Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit. For weeks, he had been secretly talking to Ukrainian intelligence. 🧵 1/

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

He fled, was detained again, then sent to an assault unit — this time near Pokrovsk. Believing he was being sent to die, he contacted Ukraine’s “I Want To Live” hotline to plan his defection. At 5am, under heavy fog, he slipped away. 7/

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

@VladDavidzon Thank you Vlad!

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

This weekend’s drone strikes on Moscow are only the beginning. On my last assignment for @thetimes I visited Firepoint, Ukraine’s largest long range drone manufacturer. They told me they are already testing ballistic missiles and anti-ballistic SAMs.

Inside the Ukrainian factory making missiles that could reach Moscow

https://t.co/DsrglUHJGo

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky's chief of staff, told me the Kremlin is trying to assassinate him even as he leads peace talks. We also spoke about Putin's threats against Kyiv, Ukraine's advances in military technology, and how the next chapter of war will look.

https://t.co/qhb4d2Ed2z

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

Russian strikes on the brigade's lines have fallen 45 per cent thanks to the shutdown of @Starlink terminals and strikes enabled by obtaining co-ordinates of Russian positions, said Yaro, an intel officer for the 128th. 7/ You can watch the full film here: https://t.co/ptwc3CUcwo

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

We gained exclusive access to Ukrainian cyberwarfare specialists and front line intelligence officers for our new @thetimes documentary, The Starlink Hack That Fooled Russian Forces... 1/

[Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker]

One such brigade was 128th Heavy Mechanised Brigade, which is fighting Russian forces in the village of Plavni. When we visited, the pace of attacks was relentless, with new intelligence coming in daily and the brigade’s drone teams striking target after target... 6/