Mikko Välimäki

interests: Inter, football, podcaster

[Mariana Betsa @Mariana_Betsa]

A man cries over his niece, who was killed in a Russian strike on Kharkiv. Fatima received her university diploma today and was brutally murdered by Russia…Pure terrorism #StopRussia #StandWithUkraine

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

APPLEBAUM: Clearly, Trump is somebody who was cultivated by Russians for many years. Clearly, when they talk to him, they spend lot of time thinking about how he can be manipulated, and he seems to respond. Trump is easy to manipulate if you know which buttons to push and so on.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

Nigel Farage stood down all 317 Brexit Party candidates in Conservative seats ahead of the 2019 general election, without warning

But why? And did Christopher Harborne play a role?

Read @thenerve_news investigation in the election that delivered Brexit
https://t.co/v4TTboeyLa

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

The GRU gun runner for the Taliban and Al Qaeda has a warning for the West, apparently.

[Tom Scott 🇺🇦 @Tom___Scott]

Christopher Harborne is threatening to sue The Nerve over this story, but has failed to say how it is inaccurate.

[Sir William Browder KCMG @Billbrowder]

I’ve fought Putin for 17 years – he’d rather watch Russia burn than admit he can’t win this war
https://t.co/mjxJoD9XhR

[The Finance Guy @OneFinanceGuy]

"Harborne, through his lawyers, Schillings, threatened defamation proceedings but wouldn’t comment or explain what was defamatory"
Chest beating billionaires 🙄🙄🙄

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

HODGES: It would be nice to have American president who would say to Russians,

“Every time you threaten to use nuclear weapons, that’s another ship full of ammunition and supplies that we’re going to send to Ukraine.”

And, “Next time I hear you threaten to use nuclear weapons, let me remind you we have about 5,000 warheads and our allies have many hundreds more.”

And, this is my main criticism of Biden administration: as much good as they did to help Ukraine, they never could say we want Ukraine to win.

Because they were worried that this would be seen as too provocative to Russia. And so, it was really failed policy overall in the end.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

Russia lies about absolutely everything, turning deception into a core state policy.

With a regime built entirely on constant fabrications, how could we ever trust a single word they say again?

Russia lied about the "separatists" in Eastern Ukraine back in 2014. They claimed they were just local rebels when it was actually the Russian army leading the charge. Back then, many in the West seriously argued they weren't Russian troops, but everyone knows the truth now.

They shamelessly lied about downing the Malaysian Airlines plane. Today, the world knows with absolute certainty that it was a Russian Buk anti-air system that downed it.

They spent an entire year moving mass amounts of troops to the border while explicitly promising they had no plans of attacking Ukraine. They maintained that exact lie until the very last day before launching a full-scale invasion, followed by immediate lies about why they were attacking.

When they got decisively defeated around Kyiv, they lied again, calling their chaotic retreat a "gesture of goodwill." A year later, they even changed that lie into a brand new one, claiming they withdrew because Ukraine was about to sign a peace deal in Istanbul.

Everyone knows Russia would never withdraw pre-emptively before any papers are signed. They didn't leave out of kindness or diplomacy. They simply got defeated.

Since then, they have just been repeating the same old fabrications, proving there is zero reason to trust anything as long as this regime is in power

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

In today’s Vatnik Soup and our “Degenerate Russia” series, we’ll discuss what kind of lowlifes sink low enough to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lie on Russia’s behalf, promote Russian BS, and even gather in Moscow or St. Petersburg to help the Kremlin wage its war.

1/21

[Acyn @Acyn]

AOC: Mike Johnson paints this as though it’s some partisan witch hunt. But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.

And he’s talking about running a protection racket. And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history.

And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I'm the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American.

What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, “You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.”

And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.

[Jamie Raskin @jamie_raskin]

Vance recognizes that the Watergate break-in is like a cub scout prank compared to the massive, all-encompassing corruption and criminality of the Trump presidency.

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

In 2014, Putin declared Crimea a sacred symbol of Russian revival.

🧵Now he has abandoned it—and left its citizens trapped on an island of despair.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

Judging by the deafening roar from the Kremlin's online propaganda machine — from useful idiots in the West and professional anti-'escalation' crusaders to hordes of trolls and bots on this hellsite — Ukraine's strikes at the very foundation of Russia's war machine are really painful and the Kremlin is getting really nervous.

[Jeffrey Goldberg @JeffreyGoldberg]

Admiral (ret.) William H. McRaven: "In recent months, President Trump, upon advice from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has relieved or forced the retirement of some of the finest officers that have ever served this nation."
Read the whole piece:
https://t.co/m9og4RFfLI

[Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 @jurgen_nauditt]

The "Patriots for Europe" are the perfect example of political hypocrisy: they deliver nationalist speeches while actively working to divide Europe and serve Russian interests.

Anyone who strengthens Putin while Russia threatens Europe is no patriot—but rather a traitor to their own security and sovereignty.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

MELONI: On Ukraine, we reiterate our commitment to just and lasting peace. That requires, first and foremost, effective security guarantees for attacked nation. However, none of this is possible if we don't continue to support Kyiv. Italy remains firmly committed to this effort.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

Since launching its disastrous, failed invasion of Ukraine, Russia has managed a pathetic historical feat: losing almost every single ounce of its international leverage while watching its global network of proxies disintegrate in real time.

The dominoes are falling fast across multiple continents. In Armenia's recent elections, voters decisively rejected Moscow, paving the way for the country to permanently leave the CSTO and shattering Russia's grip on the South Caucasus. This follows the political demise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, which stripped Vladimir Putin of his most reliable cat's paw inside the European Union, alongside repeated pro-European electoral victories in Moldova that defied massive Kremlin bribery campaigns. Farther abroad, the sudden, total collapse of the Assad regime in Syria wiped out decades of Russian military investment overnight, while other global proxies remain deeply isolated and structurally weak.

The pattern exposes a hollowed-out superpower. When its international proxies get pushed to the brink, Russia does absolutely nothing to save them because its military is completely overstretched and systematically chewed up in Ukraine.

Russia has permanently destroyed its global reputation, proving that when it actually wants to project power or protect its puppets, it fails miserably

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

A russian soldier called “Grom” raped Alisa Kovalenko for four days.

Before that, they beat her. They threatened to cut off her fingers and her teeth. They promised they would get to her parents, and to her boyfriend.

She was 27 – a documentary filmmaker who had come to Donetsk Oblast to film the beginning of Russia’s war.

A taxi driver turned her in.

Her partner, the French producer Stéphane Siohan, raised the alarm in the media. The public attention saved her. She was released. She carried what happened alone for more than a year before she could say it out loud – and then became one of the first women in Ukraine to say it anyway.

Russia expected that to break her.

In 2022, when they came back for the rest of the country, Kovalenko first got the heroes of her unfinished film to safety. Then she volunteered for the front – a mother of a small son, serving as an assault infantry soldier.

She put it as simply as it can be put:

“When you see even one form of Russian evil, you understand that it must be stopped at any cost.”

They wanted a victim. They got a soldier.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

This is exactly what we predicted earlier - Laura Loomer's engagement has dropped by 28% after she started challenging pro-Kremlin propaganda.

Social media is not real, and most Russia-supporting influencers are being amplified by Russian, Iranian and Chinese networks.