Maria R.

[Hektor ✙ @Captain_Hektor]

Виверження вулкану Wildberries 🌋

[toomas hendrik ilves @IlvesToomas]

This is Russia. Soldiers gloating over the deaths of European children they'd just shot down.

France and Italy think these soldiers should be able to come to Europe as tourists.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

HOLY CRAP!

The documents Trump just released following his speech show that Russians worked with American officials to advance stories about Burisma and Joe Biden being corrupt.

Someone is going to get fired tonight for accidentally allowing this one to be declassified.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Putin

Last night Donald Trump released a declassified document that says his own intelligence community identified Putin as personally running an operation to defeat my father in 2020, built around a fake Burisma corruption scandal centered around me and executed through prominent Americans.

Trump tasked his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to fly to Kyiv and meet a known Russian agent.

The Americans who ran, laundered, and legitimized the operation:

Donald Trump. Rudy Giuliani. John Solomon. Joe DiGenova. Victoria Toensing. Lev Parnas. Igor Fruman. Chanel Rion. Sean Hannity. Steve Bannon. Miranda Devine. Ken Vogel. Ron Johnson. Chuck Grassley. James Comer. Jim Jordan.

To name a few.

An operation formally sanctioned by Trump's own Treasury Department on September 10, 2020, and expanded to include more named actors on January 11, 2021.

Oh, and don't forget the Russian-linked FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who later pleaded guilty to making the entire Burisma bribery story up.

The record exists and we have all the receipts, and more.

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Document Declassified by Trump Reveals Russia Tried To Help Him Win the 2020 Election

https://t.co/D5BZq6W5QZ

[Michael MacKay @mhmck]

General Syrskyi broke a cardinal rule of a democracy: civilian oversight of the military. But President Zelenskyy kept him on as Commander-in-Chief and fired Fedorov as Minister of Defence instead.

Now, Syrskyi is threatening to punish soldiers *and veterans* for speaking out.

[NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @NOELreports]

We are seeing more and more Ukrainian soldiers and military-linked accounts publicly calling for Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi’s resignation and Mykhailo Fedorov’s return. They accuse Syrskyi of demoralizing the army, suppressing dissent and relying on outdated command practices. Criticism once heard mainly in trenches, training centers, headquarters and rear bases is now increasingly entering public view. #Ukraine

[Adrian P 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇪🇺 @AdrianP_doc]

Fedorov probably tanked his chances of being reinstated aa minister and even maybe is risking his life by telling the truth about Sirsky at the presser today.

He chose to tell the truth to the Ukrainian people for the good of the country.

Rare for a politician.

[Adrian P 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇪🇺 @AdrianP_doc]

At least 10 Ukrainian service members are under arrest for being involved in an extrajudicial killing at the behest of their brigade commander.

Zelensky had a choice between the general who fostered this culture of top down obedience and the defense minister trying to clean it up.

He chose the general.

I have always been here for the people I love in Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in general.

And I see today that they have to fight on two fronts.

The first against Soviet generals who literally want to kill them and the second against Soviet generals who want to keep their country in the past and under control.

Whatever his achievements in holding the country together and gaining foreign support during rhe war, Zelensky is not good for Ukraine's future.

[SK Media @SpaghettiKozak]

Yeah let's replace the innovative guy who quickly got results because the Soviet failure says so. Great leadership, @ZelenskyyUa.

[Cloooud |🇺🇦 @GloOouD]

Mass protests against President Zelenskyy’s decision to dismiss Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov from his post!

Mr President, if your approval ratings matter to you, then you should listen to the people! Reinstate Fedorov!

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

Firing Mykhailo Fedorov was a big mistake.

During his time as Defense Minister, Ukraine started to regain momentum on the battlefield. He delivered real results, and his team modernized key parts of Ukraine's military and even managed to cut Russian forces in occupied territories off from Starlink, disrupting their operations.

[Kadi🇪🇪🌻 @TheFl0orIsLaVa]

You know it hurts when russia suddenly remembers international law.

[Julian Röpcke 🇩🇪🤝🇺🇦 @JulianRoepcke]

Die ukrainische Armee hat eine mit Sprengstoff beladene Schwimmdrohne gegen das FSB-Schiff „Izumrud“ im streng bewachten Hafen von Noworossiysk eingesetzt.

➡️Vom 62 Meter langen Grenzpatrouillenschiff der Rubin-Klasse ist laut ersten Satellitenbildern nicht viel übrig geblieben.

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Ukraine cannot afford a new political crisis right now. Firing @FedorovMykhailo would trigger just that, both within Ukrainian society and with many international partners. I hope that differences can be resolved through more modest means.

[SK Media @SpaghettiKozak]

If they actually fire Fedorov, I hope the reaction in Kyiv is like when they tried to cripple NABU last year.

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

Federov should not be replaced. Ukraine has such positive momentum right now. I hope this does not go through. Federov is quite popular as well.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

Among Zelensky's main shortcomings as president are his endless favoritism and his carelessness in personnel policy.

Ever since 2019, there has always been someone this guy, someone at his shoulder, standing behind Zelensky and quietly whispering things into his ear. First it was the notorious lawyer Andriy Bohdan, then, until recently, the untouchable gray cardinal Andriy Yermak, then someone else.

The current situation with the reported threat of dismissing the popular young defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov reminds me of early 2020, when Zelensky suddenly fired his first defense minister, Andriy Zahorodniuk.

It seemed that, after a succession of post-Soviet parade generals, the new president had appointed the country's first genuine civilian defense minister in line with the Western principle of civilian control over the military, a man from senior business management.

Many long-overdue reforms got underway, there was a clear plan, and anti-corruption watchdogs were quite pleased.

But nope -- Less than six months later, Zelensky fired Zahorodniuk before allowing him to finish almost anything he had started.

Because he had "failed to prove himself." At the time, however, the circles around the Defense Ministry, the Presidential Office, and the press persistently said that the sudden decision had been pushed by none other than Andriy Yermak, who had become head of the Presidential Office just a couple of weeks earlier and immediately began putting his own people in place and getting rid of those he disliked.

After his dismissal, Zahorodniuk insisted in conversations that he had never had any conflict with Yermak, but the press of those years persistently reported that Yermak had convinced Zelensky to throw out the defense minister because he objected to the then-time drama of pulling back Ukrainian troops from the frontline with Russian-controlled militant formations in Donbas.

The business manager in a suit was replaced by yet another post-Soviet general from the military bureaucracy, Andriy Taran -- who, during his two years in office became memorable mainly for being unable to string two words together and for constantly failing to complete the state defense procurement program.

That is how we ended up with the endless, barely comprehensible carousel of reshuffles, dismissals, and appointments, which people here in Ukraine sometimes refer to as "rearranging the beds in a brothel."

And now it is starting again.

Fedorov, with enormous progress in Ukraine's digital transformation behind him, has served as defense minister for only about six months.

He managed to cut Russians off from Starlink, drone production is booming, digitalization is accelerating, processes are being optimized, AI is being introduced on a massive scale, and there is now a strategy for technological superiority over Russia.

And that's it -- Fedorov has already fallen out of favor because the young IT guy did not get along with General Syrskyi and his methods of working.

And, according to rumors, Fedorov and his reforms have become a thorn in the side of those who have gotten too used to making very good money from military production.

Now Ihor Klymenko, the interior minister and former chief of the National Police, is reportedly being lined up to replace Fedorov. He is remembered mainly for his video in which he boasted about how National Guard recruits are drilled obsessively to make their beds with the sheets aligned perfectly to a string.

Every time our Defense Ministry starts climbing even half a head above the stagnant swamp, Zelensky's favorites always pop up and whisper in his ear -- urging him to appoint yet another mediocrity who would be comfortable for everyone, change nothing, and get in nobody's way.

That is how we live and fight -- two steps forward, one and a half steps back.

[Julian Röpcke 🇩🇪🤝🇺🇦 @JulianRoepcke]

In der Tat macht die angeblich geplante Kabinettsänderung den Eindruck erfolgreichen Lobbyismus gegen einen jungen Minister, der Reformen angeht und die Korruption im Verteidigungswesen bekämpfen will.

Gerade in einer Zeit ohne Wahlen sollte jeder Besetzung Stabilität bringen.

[Anonymous @YourAnonCentral]

Russian opposition figure Igor Eidman claimed that Senator Lindsey Graham may have been poisoned in a Kremlin intelligence operation. Graham had announced progress on new Russia sanctions roughly two days before his death, but US officials have not reported any foul play.