Matias Repetto

life is riddled with unintended consequences resulting from decisions aimed at preventing unintended consequences

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

This is what Christianity truly means to Russia.

The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, the oldest and most significant monastery of Eastern Slavic Orthodox Christianity, a UNESCO site with almost 1,000 years of history, was under Russian attack last night in Ukraine’s capital city.

This is what happens in reality while that monstrous Soviet KGB regime obsessed with war and territorial grabs tries to pose as “based and trad” to fool Christian conservatives in the West.

And it started raining in the Ukrainan city when its main holy site was on fire.

[Ole Lehmann @itsolelehmann]

it's insane to me that this isn't all over mainstream media right now.

for the first time in human history, a drug built to reverse aging was just put into a living person

a company called Life Biosciences dosed the first patient in their trial for something called ER-100

it comes from a Harvard geneticist named David Sinclair

his theory is that aging comes from your cells losing track of how to read their own DNA

think of it like a computer. the hardware is fine, but the software slowly gets corrupted over the years, so the machine runs slower and slower until it stops

the instructions for a young, healthy cell are all still in there. your cells just lost access to them over time

so this drug does one thing: it reboots the cell back to the version of itself that knew how to run properly

they pull it off with three proteins that reset a cell to a younger state

and they proved it works before ever touching a human

first they restored vision in old mice. then they restored vision in monkeys with optic nerve damage, with no tumors and no signs of harm

so now they're testing it on people going blind from glaucoma and a nerve condition called NAION

they started with the eye on purpose. it's the cleanest place to test the idea, because they can inject it into one eye without it reaching the rest of the body, the cells there don't heal on their own so any improvement clearly came from the drug, and they can measure vision right down to the letters on a chart

the reset happens at the level of the cell, so in theory the same approach could one day rejuvenate the liver, the kidneys, even the brain

it won't be automatic though. every organ needs its own way of getting the drug into the right cells, plus its own round of safety testing. so it doesn't suddenly work everywhere the moment it works in the eye

but the eye answers the one question nobody could answer before: whether you can safely turn back the age of living cells inside a person

if the answer is yes, reaching the rest of the body comes down to delivery, one organ at a time. that part is hard, but it's the kind of hard you can engineer your way through

to be clear, this is an early safety trial. 18 people, 5 year follow up.

so nobody is gonna cure aging by next year

but if it works, we'll look back at this week as the moment the clock started running backwards for the first time

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

At long last, the UN Human Rights Council has formally acknowledged that Hamas in Gaza carried out executions, torture, improperly used medical facilities for terror purposes, and engaged in violent abuses against women and children after October 7. The report captures only a fraction of what actually occurred, in part because documenting these crimes is extraordinarily difficult and because Gazans fear retaliation if they report anything to the UN or other investigators. The findings on Hamas were buried beneath a long section on Israeli settler abuses in the West Bank, but even so, this marks a significant shift for an international body that has long struggled to speak plainly about Hamas’s brutality in Gaza.

Most importantly, the report acknowledges but barely scratches the surface of how extensively Hamas has weaponized Gaza’s medical infrastructure, embedding fighters in hospitals, using patients as shields, and turning civilian facilities into operational hubs. The UN even notes that Doctors Without Borders evacuated non-essential staff from Nasser Hospital because Hamas was interfering with the hospital’s operations.

When I shared this information, including testimonies from Gazans who documented Hamas’s fascistic behavior inside hospitals, and photos of fighters emerging from Nasser Hospital after the ceasefire, the online “pro-Palestine” chorus had nothing to offer except accusations of Zionist collaboration, accusations of betrayal, and personal insults. This UN report is an indictment not only of Hamas, a violent extremist terror organization responsible for immense suffering, but also of every activist, journalist, and academic who chose to look away. It shows that Hamas’s crimes were so egregious, so undeniable, that even a slow, hesitant, and often ineffectual body like the UNHRC could no longer pretend not to see them.

Shame on anyone who still defends Hamas or ever believed its violence constituted “resistance” on behalf of the Palestinian people.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

For two decades, Vladimir Putin managed to trick the world into believing he was a master geopolitical chess player.

The catastrophic invasion of Ukraine has permanently shattered that illusion, exposing him as one of the most wildly overestimated strategists in modern history.

Putin's long streak of international ”successes” was never a product of strategic brilliance. Instead, his ”victories” happened simply because he was willing to break international rules and push further than his targets expected. Many of his opponents mistakenly believed that appeasement would preserve stability, which only encouraged his aggressive behavior for years.

The moment someone finally stood up to him, the entire facade came crashing down. Ukraine refused to capitulate, and the Kremlin's supposedly unstoppable military machine failed pathetically. Putin completely miscalculated the resolve of Ukrainian people and the unity of the West, proving that his earlier triumphs were just the result of bullying weak and hesitant adversaries.

By overstretching his forces in this reckless war, he has effectively ruined the economic potential and future of Russia. His legacy is now defined by a bleeding military, crippling sanctions, and absolute isolation from the developed world. It is a pathetic end for a ruler who genuinely believed his own propaganda

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Putin is afraid of Zelenskyy.

Thats why he won’t meet him.

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

I just attended the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, hosted by the Human Rights Foundation, an annual gathering of global dissidents and those confronting authoritarian regimes. I previously spoke at the Forum in 2024 and 2025; this year’s theme, “Dismantling Dictatorship,” focused on the obstacles facing people trying to build alternative narratives, institutions, and futures in closed societies. Gaza remains a point of tension in this community: some insist the focus should be solely on Israel, while others recognize the glaring gap in addressing Hamas and the immense harm it has inflicted on Palestinians since its founding.

I met activists and dissidents from across Latin America & Africa who told me I was the first Palestinian they had ever heard openly condemn Hamas. They expressed relief, gratitude, and deep concern about how pro‑Hamas sentiments are spreading rapidly across their continents, especially in states ruled by dictatorships. I also spoke with a UN Special Rapporteur who voiced frustration at how large segments of the human rights community have intentionally and deliberately ignored Hamas’s violent and tyrannical repression of Gazans. Several journalists echoed similar concerns, including Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, with whom I had a candid conversation about the flaws in some of the sources used in a recent column. He listened with humility and acknowledged the validity of the issues I raised.

While some attendees projected onto me simplistic expectations about what a Palestinian from Gaza “should” believe, many others were genuinely eager to engage with a perspective that is unfortunately and embarrassingly rare among English‑speaking "pro-Palestine" spaces, yet very common among Gazans themselves – voices that are overwhelmingly against Hamas, exhausted by the mythology of “armed resistance,” and desperate for a radically different path centered on peace, nation‑building, dignity, and freedom from terror and Islamist rule.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Open Letter
To the President of the Russian Federation
From the President of Ukraine

When you came to power in Russia more than 26 years ago, many people in Ukraine viewed you positively. That is how it was. But that is now in the past.
Now, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our long-range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities.

[Matias Repetto @MRepettoV]

@DerekHuffmanRU @IAPonomarenko Calling a Nazi a Jew isn't just ignorance, it's propaganda. The two are historically and ideologically incompatible. When someone makes a claim that absurd, they're not trying to inform; they're trying to manipulate.

[Matias Repetto @MRepettoV]

Por si alguien todavía tiene dudas del verdadero objetivo de Rusia con Ucrania.

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

🤡At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia presented its long-term geopolitical scenarios for the future.

GOOD SCENARIO:

- Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities under Russian control by 2036.
- A fully controlled buffer state on Ukrainian territory - or the annexation of Ukraine.
- The collapse of the European Union.
- Russia becoming a global leader in security and geopolitics by 2050.

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

🤡At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia presented its long-term geopolitical scenarios for the future.

GOOD SCENARIO:

- Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and other Ukrainian cities under Russian control by 2036.
- A fully controlled buffer state on Ukrainian territory - or the annexation of Ukraine.
- The collapse of the European Union.
- Russia becoming a global leader in security and geopolitics by 2050.

[Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis]

1/6
Financial Times: "A company-level OECD analysis of government subsidies across 15 key industrial sectors found that nearly 60 per cent of Chinese firms’ global market share gains since 2005 could be attributed to subsidies."
https://t.co/o2mcZeaagi

[NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @NOELreports]

A Ukrainian FP-1/2 drone hit Russia’s Admiral Essen Project 11356 frigate at Novorossiysk naval base on May 23. #Russia

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Putin is losing this war.

Tried to take all Ukraine—failed.
Tried to overthrow Zelenskyy—failed.
Tried to demilitarize Ukraine—failed.
Tried to stop NATO expansion—failed.

I honestly can't believe this war has not ended yet.

[olexander scherba🇺🇦 @olex_scherba]

“I never cease to be amazed by 🇷🇺. Launching their “Oreshnik” - a strategic-class missile, costing a hundred million dollars, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead - at a garage cooperative in Kyiv Oblast.

Let’s count how much that night cost them.

One “Oreshnik” - around a hundred million dollars worth. About ninety cruise and ballistic missiles - Kh-101, Kalibr, Iskander-K - at an average price of eight million each, that’s another roughly seven hundred and twenty million. Six hundred Shaheds at fifty thousand each - thirty million. Plus fuel, carriers, maintenance, intelligence.

Total: around eight hundred and fifty million dollars for a single night. Nearly a billion.

And what did they get for that billion?

They clipped some garages in Bila Tserkva. Destroyed the “Kvadrat” shopping center. Set the roof of a dormitory in Darnytskyi on fire. Blew out a stairwell in a five-story building in Shevchenkivskyi. Hit a market. A supermarket. A building supply hypermarket in Obolonskyi. Dropped debris on the Lobanovskyi Dynamo stadium.

Two sleeping civilians killed. Fifty-six wounded, including children. That is their strategic result for a billion dollars? That is their “special operation.” That is their “greatness.”

They cannot move an inch on the front. Cannot take a single settlement of any significance. Cannot defeat the army of a country they planned to conquer in three days four years ago. And in convulsions, in agony, in impotent rage, they pound away at night against residential neighborhoods, museums, markets, shops, garages.

Impotent on the battlefield, compensating for their failure with the number of munitions fired at sleeping people.

Blunt evil and helplessness at the same time.”

(C) 🇺🇦 Ivan Liptuga

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

The moment of one of today’s Russian strikes on Kyiv.

I can see that fewer and fewer people are reading news from Ukraine. I understand that on a Sunday morning, people don’t want to read about war. They want to sleep a little longer, drink good coffee, and sit in the sun. I understand that. The algorithms on X limit content about war, destruction, and suffering. You have to make an effort to even see this information.

All of this is understandable on a human level. But unfortunately, if you remove Putin and the war from your information feed, they do not disappear from reality.

Putin is a sadist and a maniac. He is a threat to all of humanity.

There needs to be active resistance. News from Ukraine needs to be shared. People need to keep their focus.

Despite a sleepless night, I’m still here. And I’m grateful to everyone who continues to stand with us.

One day, we’ll drink morning coffee together in a beautiful, peaceful Kyiv.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

A reminder that Russia is waging a terrorist war on Ukraine, and a reminder that standing by and watching are the richest nations on Earth, controlling the most powerful military alliance in history, an alliance created specifically to stop Russia in Europe. Sickening.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Kasparov: Putin will not use nuclear weapons without China’s permission — and he will not get it.

Beijing does not want nukes becoming a geopolitical tool, because then Taiwan, Japan and South Korea could go nuclear too. 3/

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

When I write about the long-run consequences of population decline, I’ve noticed that most people cannot grasp what a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.1 means. Many of my readers look at 1.1 and treat it as not that different from 2.1. This is the wrong way to think about it: TFRs are like interest rates; they compound over time.

To make the point, I ran the following simulation. I built the population structure of a country with 1 million inhabitants, a TFR of 2.1 (just at replacement level), and a life expectancy of 85 (with realistic survival rates). Thus, this country has a stationary population over time.

I then hit this country with a reduction in the TFR from 2.1 to 1.1. The reduction, which takes 25 years to complete, is similar in size and duration to what we’ve seen in many advanced and middle-income economies. It is also concentrated among younger women, with fertility postponed to later years. I plot the initial, middle, and final TFR in the top-left panel of the figure.

I then simulate the next 200 years of this population. By the year 200, the original 1 million has fallen to 54,900, a 95.5% reduction. The top-right panel illustrates this evolution. This is not a minor adjustment: it means closing 95 of every 100 universities, hospitals, and shops. Since the population is likely to concentrate in a few remaining cities, nearly the whole country becomes a population desert.

The bottom two panels show the population structure and pyramids. The population stabilizes at a median age of 61 and an old-age dependency ratio of 95.21%.

You might argue that TFR is unlikely to remain at 1.1 for so long because higher-fertility subgroups (e.g., the highly religious) would grow as a share of the population. Fair enough. But I am not offering this simulation as a forecast. I am illustrating how, at current rates, countries of 50 million people (roughly South Korea or Spain) would become countries of 2.75 million, ignoring immigration.

These are the issues for the next century.

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

Let me lay out the unpleasant arithmetic of the replacement rate, and why a modern society finds it so hard to reach.

A population of 100 women in an advanced economy needs 210 children to replace itself. Why?

Absent sex-selective practices, roughly 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Evolution overshoots male births because boys are more prone to early death from accidents and disease. Therefore, of 210 children, about 108 are boys and 102 are girls. Not all girls reach the midpoint of their fertile age: accidents, suicide, homicide, and illness take some. In an advanced economy, about 98% of them survive, leaving 100 women to replace the original 100.

Now consider the distribution of children per woman.

Imagine 15 women have no children. Five do so by choice, for various reasons (professional, affective, religious). Ten face unfixable fertility problems, theirs or their partner’s. The 10% figure is conservative: the medical literature points to around 13%, and that does not even count male fertility problems.

Of the remaining 85, 10 have one child, 60 have two, 10 have three, and 5 have four. I am stopping at four to keep the post concise; very few women in younger cohorts have five or more children, but I could adapt the example to account for them.

Hence, the 100 women in this population have 180 children, for a completed fertility rate of 1.8.

Interestingly, this is roughly the rate we saw in many advanced economies until the early 1990s, and in the U.S. until around 2008.

But we are still 30 children short of replacement! Voluntary childlessness is only 5%. Three-quarters of women have two or more children. Look around: most of your friends will have two, plenty will have three or four. And yet, we are well below replacement.

You would not look at this population and call it selfish (is having two kids hedonistic?) or accuse it of losing family values (only 5% of women are choosing voluntarily not to have children).

The point is simpler. To reach 210 births, you need a substantial share of women to have three or more children. Two as the “normal” pattern will not get you there. And modern society makes three or more a costly proposition for most families.

Of course, current fertility rates in most advanced economies are well below 1.8. But my point is that, under present social arrangements, we should not expect 2.1, even if (to humor last weekend’s debate) we banned smartphones and TikTok. We need many, many more families with three or four children.

More pointedly, there is no self-regulating mechanism that pushes a society back to 2.1. The market-clearing analogy many economists use is flawed; scarcity feedback does not work the same way. (Another post on this another day.) And, as I often read, the claim that “nature” somehow regulates current overpopulation is just childish mumbo jumbo.

So yes, the arithmetic of replacement rate is unpleasant.

[GeoConfirmed @GeoConfirmed]

GeoConfirmed conflictmap UKR.

We try to avoid statements but there are limits.

After analyzing thousands of videos over more than four years, we feel we have earned the right to speak plainly: Russia is committing war crimes repeatedly and systematically and they are getting worse.

The longer the West fails to respond decisively, the more these crimes continue. This inaction also sends a dangerous signal to other authoritarian regimes, suggesting that international law can be violated with little consequence. As a result, the boundaries of international law are becoming increasingly weak and difficult to enforce.

The last few days have once again shown that the Russian regime is a terrorist regime that has little regard for humanitarian law:

(1)
After Ukraine agreed to a Russian 3-day ceasefire proposal, for the Russian commemoration of the end of World War II and its victory over Nazi Germany, Russia launched one of the most severe attacks on Kyiv since the beginning of the war, resulting in multiple civilian casualties.
This stands in stark contrast to Russia’s public rhetoric about peace and historical memory.

(2)
It is not enough that Russia is deliberately targeting civilians in Kherson, also known as the “human safari”, it has now also started attacking clearly marked UN vehicles, which would represent another serious violation of international law. Attempts to hide or destroy evidence only make these actions more alarming. And its not the first time they try to hide or manipulate evidence.

Western leaders, especially the Trump administration, should wake up instead of being so easily manipulated by the Russian regime.

0:00-0:17, location at 0:05 - United Nations (UN) vehicle was hit by Russian drones.
46.62328, 32.595023
JHFW+826 Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine

0:18-End - United Nations (UN) vehicles were hit by Russian drones.
46.621161, 32.576600
JHCG+FJ9Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine

Great work by @99Dominik_!

GeoLocated by @99Dominik_ and @Zeldamices

Geolocation:
https://t.co/LvhmmJVj4o
https://t.co/vL0o9545gr

Location:
https://t.co/ndA9stLim2

Statement by the UN representative:
https://t.co/6Wqf6v24ro
https://t.co/4LblB2U1FI

Sources:
https://t.co/rjrtra5WCv
https://t.co/uxKiJHpMvN
(Longer)
https://t.co/KdQmjFmJ4m
https://t.co/u9gLCy07sW

The original source has deleted their Telegram post with the video, but the information and the Russian unit claiming responsibility have been archived. https://t.co/QNakvALfNi

Visit our map: https://t.co/g9OP1aPlGP