wilmes15

Associate Professor of Russian Studies

[Вестник @vesstnik]

Как же красиво на болотах бывает!!!

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

So the situation is roughly this: Zelensky listened to his buddies, and with a snap of his fingers sent an entire government tumbling down the drain, just to get rid of one single defense minister whose anti-corruption policies had started to greatly upset some very respected people who were used to earning handsomely off military procurement.

And also because, you see, torn between a deeply unpopular and repeatedly scandal-ridden commander-in-chief of the armed forces and an effective, innovative minister of defense, Zelensky had no time to sort it out and decide -- so he did the simplest thing and, without the slightest public explanation, fired the defense minister.

Whose firing, conveniently, the respected people had also been asking for. And also because the young minister was rapidly gaining popularity!

So Zelensky decides to appoint as defense minister someone who has never distinguished himself in any way and is deeply unpopular, but obedient, lacking any initiative, and convenient -- a former cop from yesterday's Ministry of Internal Affairs.

But the Verkhovna Rada, exhausted from its grueling labors, fails to give a vote amid public outrage and heads off for a month-long recess in the middle of wartime, leaving the country without a full-fledged defense minister or foreign minister in the new government.

As a result, Zelensky triggered one of the largest wartime political crises: street protests, paralysis, confusion.

And on top of that, Zelensky decided to move Ukraine's ambassador to the US and suddenly appoint the just-departed prime minister in her place -- except, well, tough luck, because he'd already had a massive falling-out with her over that scandalous and insulting dismissal, and she quite fairly gave him the middle finger.

Plunging into total chaos, Zelensky urgently arranges heart-to-heart meetings with practically every respected and prominent combat commander of Ukraine's defense forces, takes dozens of photo-ops with them, and suddenly has an epiphany -- removing his favorite general from the post of commander-in-chief, the very general he'd been backing and deferring to just yesterday in his standoff with the defense minister.

"The people have been heard," but the return of the defense minister, Zelensky is somehow in no hurry (the respected people are asking, after all, and why grow yourself a political rival!).

Instead, in direct violation of the law, he hides behind the name of a deeply respected combat general, yanks him out of the SBU, names him acting defense minister until the Rada convenes again, and installs a decorated soldier and intelligence officer as a civilian manager of resources, budgets, and process optimization.

And by the way -- our former Minister of Internal Affairs, the cop, is left without the defense minister post he was promised! What to do? Gotta find him a job, fast.

Oh! Let him go head the National Security and Defense Council -- symbolic, meaningless, but nice for a friend.

And what about Zelensky's buddy who's already sitting in that chair, who's already proven himself a thoroughly useless defense minister and a rather mediocre negotiator, which is exactly why he's parked in that ceremonial, symbolic security council post?

Well, let him go head the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine -- never mind that he hasn't served a single day in any intelligence service, never had any connection to one whatsoever -- can't leave a buddy without a post now, can we?

You have just read a short sketch on the theme of "Volodymyr Zelensky's personnel policy, or God alone knows how Ukraine is still not dead in this war with such a mess."

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Q: "This is at least the fifth time you've turned off airstrikes against Iran since April to negotiate. What is your message to the American people who are wondering what has changed this time?"

Trump: "Well, I don't know. I think we're going to maybe get something, but I want to give them every last chance before decapitation. It's very tough to do what we have planned…To do an attack that big on a country, I'd rather not do it. Now we've already threw lots of large attacks — but they were normal large…[Iran] called me and they said, 'Please don't attack, we'll make a deal.' That's the real truth and everyone knows it…Iran knew it. They knew what was coming. It was going to come last night and it would have gone on for a long time and there'd be nothing left."

[Zara Quinn @_Zaraquin]

If you can’t impeach a President for laundering money, War crimes, corruption, Market Manipulations, illegal Wars nowadays, what can you impeach them for?

[Вестник @vesstnik]

Красивое:

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Consequences of the Big Beautiful Bill, Tariffs, and the Iran War.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Imagine if Joe Biden owned a social media platform, moved markets with his posts, traded ahead of them, sold VIP early access for $1.2 million a year, and Hunter Biden happened to invest in a defense company just before a war with Iran. Cable news would never stop talking about it.

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

🎉 The moment an FP-1 strike drone hit a Wildberries warehouse in Russia’s Vladimir region

This is one of Wildberries’ largest regional logistics hubs. The complex covers approximately 175,000 square meters and has a planned capacity of around 122 million items.

[Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian]

The U.S. National Debt is $40T

Donald Trump accumulated $16T of that $40T

In just 6 years, Donald Trump has been responsible for 40% of the debt our country has ever accumulated in 250 years.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Mary Trump: “Donald was never loved and my grandfather by treating him differently made him unlovable. He’s a black hole of need. The thing he needs is love. It’s also the thing he will never ever have. Nobody loves this man. He tries to fill it up with money and power and flattery and putting his name on everything to make him feel special”

[Leo Panama 🇺🇦🇵🇦#NAFO #MUGA #fella @LeoTPan3]

Финальная распродажа на WB.
🔥Очень двусмысленная фраза

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

Once again: Trump was not in the military nor anywhere near it

[Noah Karl🌏🌌🚀 🇪🇺🇩🇪 @NoahKarl1]

The difference between

"There used to be hot summers too."

and
climate crisis.

[Pepel Klaasa @pepel_klaasa]

This looks like AI, but it is Wildberries in Samara

[Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen]

Trump: billionaire
Elon Musk, DOGE: billionaire
Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE: billionaire
Linda McMahon, Education Sec: billionaire
Doug Burgum, Interior Sec: billionaire
Howard Lutnick, Commerce Sec: billionaire
Scott Bessent, Treasury Sec: billionaire
Charles Kushner, Amb France: billionaire
Warren Stephens, Amb UK: billionaire
Jared Isaacman, NASA: billionaire
Kelly Loeffler, SBA: billionaire
Steve Witkoff, Middle East: billionaire

But sure, these are the people who are focused on the cost of eggs. Got it.

[I Smoked Lindsey Graham @BlackKnight10k]

Can someone tell me how Hunter Biden having a job once was somehow this massive scandal that warranted impeaching Joe Biden but Trump literally selling access to the office of the President isn't

[tim russ @timruss2]

Trump announced a subscription service: If you pay HIM 100K per month, you can have access to Federal policies ahead of being implemented, so you can do insider trading. Just when is this shit going to be stopped? How many crimes can any one person commit before it's enough?

[MAKS 26 🇺🇦👀 @Maks_NAFO_FELLA]

Wildberries BINGO 🔥🔝

[QE Infinity @StealthQE4]

50% of this country can’t afford health insurance but the government will write Apple(who has more money than god) a $2 billion tariff refund check.

This is so twisted beyond belief I don’t know where to start 😡

[Музыкант 🇮🇱🇺🇦 @MichaelRemesnik]

Что сказать ? Молодец Ксюша !👍