Yavor Bachev

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

I spoke to @theipaper's @KieronMonks on the opening of the road bridge between Russia and North Korea: https://t.co/rAcx7DY7mQ

Drivers from both countries will be required to exchange goods at the border rather than drive into each other's territories - a built-in chokepoint. Until now, bilateral trade relied almost entirely on a single Soviet-era rail line (the 1959 "Friendship Bridge") and sporadic sea routes. The new road bridge adds throughput capacity and redundancy, and in a wartime logistics context, that matters.

The rapid construction pace directly reflects elevated trade activity driven by North Korea supplying troops, weapons, munitions, and labor for Russia's Ukraine operations. The bridge lowers the friction and cost of transferring artillery shells, rockets, and other materiel items that North Korea has already been supplying in large quantities by rail and sea. The 300-vehicle/day capacity is real but not transformative in isolation. The existing rail corridor has already been carrying substantial freight.

This is irony. Russia - a permanent Security Council member and formerly self-styled great power - is now in a structurally dependent relationship with one of the world's most sanctioned and isolated states. The bridge is, in part, a monument to that dependency.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

In one of the first serious tests of whether the new parliament will challenge the oligarchic model in Bulgaria, Rumen Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria just blocked the creation of a commission to investigate the assets of Delian Peevski, who has been sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. The proposal came from Democratic Bulgaria. Radev’s party voted “abstain,” Peevski’s party voted “against,” and the party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov voted “abstain.”

Some Western media outlets, like @nytimes and the @BBC, are convincing their audiences - likely due to a lack of understanding of the local context - that the new government, formed after the convincing victory on April 19 of the Russian-backed Rumen Radev, will fight corruption and the oligarchy. On the ground, things are quite different.

Members of Progressive Bulgaria have already taken control of the media regulator: https://t.co/B23uax5zBr
The views of some of Radev’s closest associates are identical to the Russian perspective on Europe and Ukraine: https://t.co/tWxz2Gtbyo

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Read this joint @VSquare_Project investigation carefully: https://t.co/S61ZjwvrA5
In short, the investigation is about a clandestine department inside one of Russia's most prestigious universities, quietly mass-producing the GRU's next generation of hackers, saboteurs, and intelligence officers.

At the same time, we in the EU are still stuck in endless discussions and closed-door meetings, whose conclusions never reach the general public. Not to mention the funding for counter-disinformation - always woefully inadequate, plagued by bureaucracy, and lacking any connection to decision-makers. These failures were evident during the elections in Bulgaria, the current crisis in Romania, and public sentiment in several Western European countries, which are slowly but surely being targeted again - successfully - by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation.

All of us who have been battling information operations for years know that we will soon face the next generation, trained by the GRU, and that we will once again be fighting with far weaker means.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Ukrainian strikes have caused significant disruptions to Russia's oil export infrastructure, but the concurrent spike in global oil prices partially offset the revenue damage.

The most dramatic disruption came in late March. Ukrainian drone attacks on the Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga - which together account for roughly 42% of Russia's seaborne oil exports - began on March 23. By the week ending March 29, Russian seaborne oil exports collapsed to 2.32 million barrels per day, down from 4.07 million bpd the previous week; a drop of approximately 1.75 million bpd. At their peak disruption, about 40% of Russia's total oil export capacity (~2 million bpd) was shut as of late March.

Between March 25 and April 11, the daily volume shipped from Russian ports fell to an average of 3.5 million bpd, meaning Russia lost roughly 30 million barrels in export sales during that roughly three-week window. Of that, an estimated 0.55 million tons were physically burned up in storage tanks at the ports during the attacks; the remainder was delayed rather than permanently lost. Russia was also forced to cut oil production in April.

Analysts at Carnegie caution that these Ukrainian-attributed losses must be weighed against a separate windfall: global oil prices surged in March after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Russia's Urals crude price shot up 67% month-on-month to $94.5/barrel in March - well over double the updated G7 price cap of $44.1/barrel. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) notes that, paradoxically, Russia's fossil fuel export revenues hit a two-year high in March 2026, up 52% month-on-month to EUR 713 million per day, largely because higher prices more than offset the volume losses. According to Carnegie analysis, even in the two worst weeks after March 23, Russia's notional oil revenues were still 62% higher than in the last two weeks of February.

[JER @lifeofjer]

https://t.co/ofucbVgkLV

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

A close associate of Radev is taking the helm of the Bulgarian media regulator. https://t.co/W7T479cpwg From the perspective of media monitoring, such early appointments are of great significance, as control over regulatory bodies is a key lever for influencing the media landscape. Such actions, presented as administrative or technical, have often preceded broader structural changes.

For now, the 'new model' for which Radev's supporters are pretending is behaving just like the old one.

[Christo Grozev @christogrozev]

From Tanks to Tarots: how the Kremlin uses fake horoscopes and psychic predictions (as opposed to the real ones, ahem) as part of its hybrid warfare. It's Mercury retrograde all over again.

[Tatsiana Ashurkevich @tashurkevich]

Two Tauruses obsessed with money and power... or so the stars said in our new investigation with @christogrozev.
I’d never imagine I end up a Russian propagandist, but thanks to Christo I finally got the chance. Learn how Putin’s tarot army operates: watch our new investigation https://t.co/5oNIi9mhuQ

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Rumen Radev, whose party took the lead in Bulgaria’s elections tonight, has long been linked to the Kremlin in a “controversial manner”.

Leonid Reshetnikov is a retired Lieutenant General of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) who headed the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI) from 2009 to 2017. RISI, formally part of the SVR until 2009 and thereafter under the presidential administration, served as a key instrument of Russian soft power and influence operations across Eastern Europe. After leaving RISI in 2017, Reshetnikov became chairman of the supervisory board of Tsargrad TV, a neo-imperial Russian news channel financed by Kremlin-linked oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.

The core of the Radev–Reshetnikov link traces to the 2016 Bulgarian presidential election. According to a U.S. State Department report on Russian disinformation, Reshetnikov directly interfered in that election. His institute commissioned a sociological study conducted between July 1–15, 2016, specifically designed to identify the profile of an ideal pro-Russian BSP presidential candidate - one who would increase support for Russia while eroding support for the US, EU, and NATO. The results of that survey, analysts noted, mapped almost precisely onto Rumen Radev's public profile. Crucially, just two weeks after the study concluded, General Radev resigned as Air Force commander on August 1, 2016 - and within days, BSP and ABV were already promoting him as their presidential candidate.

After Radev won the 2016 presidential election, Reshetnikov himself publicly acknowledged that he had discussed Radev's candidacy with BSP leader Kornelia Ninova, effectively confirming Russian intelligence involvement in shaping the nomination. This admission was cited directly in Bulgarian and international media. The U.S. State Department subsequently included the 2016 Bulgarian presidential election in its broader report on the Kremlin's global propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.

The Reshetnikov connection deepened in September 2019, when Bulgarian Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov charged Nikolai Malinov - head of the pro-Russian Russophile National Movement - with espionage for Russia, and simultaneously announced that Reshetnikov was banned from entering Bulgaria for 10 years on national security grounds. Investigations revealed that Malinov had controlled accounts receiving funds from RISI and the Double-Headed Eagle Society - organizations linked directly to Reshetnikov and Malofeev. At the time, President Radev responded cautiously, demanding "incontrovertible evidence" and suggesting the prosecution might be a politically motivated domestic maneuver — a reaction that critics interpreted as shielding the network.

On the eve of today's election, the Washington Post published an analysis describing Bulgaria as the "Kremlin's next best bet" following Viktor Orbán's defeat in Hungary - framing a potential Radev government as Moscow's most significant remaining lever of influence inside the EU and NATO. Analysts and former diplomats interviewed expressed concern that Russian influence operations, with Reshetnikov's 2016 template as the blueprint, had now produced a political vehicle - Progressive Bulgaria - capable of reaching government.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu announced the completion of renovation works on several railway lines along the border with Syria. https://t.co/25SmeODnla

Meanwhile, the Syrian General Establishment for Railways agreed with al-Hasakah Governorate on a work program to remove obstacles and restore the railroad line linking the Turkish and Iraqi borders. https://t.co/o0kc9dzuWx

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Ankara and Tel Aviv are increasingly engaging in verbal spats and indirect attacks. This has the potential to escalate, which, if it happens, would undermine joint projects that Turkey is developing in the Middle East—with Ukraine’s participation for the past two years—from which the EU would also benefit.

The rhetoric of the Israeli far right against Turkey is not new, though some have only noticed it in recent weeks. As early as late 2024, calls and publications emerged calling for an attack on Turkey’s nuclear infrastructure, which was a new development in the narratives at that time.

Many observers believe that the interests of Israel and Turkey will clash; to some extent, this clash is already taking place, and Syria is one of the main areas of confrontation.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

If this is confirmed, it will be one of the Trump administration’s most absurd decisions. The Obama administration unfroze assets during the first nuclear deal; those assets helped the IRGC finance and expand its proxy forces and networks in the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe.

This money was used to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah, whose forces were at the time waging war against Syrian rebels and triggering the largest refugee wave of its time. With the funds freed up, Tehran strengthened its political influence in Iraq, helped the Houthis take the Yemeni capital, and bolstered its missile program.

Let us recall that Trump criticized Obama precisely because of the 2015 deal. What matters most to the Guard is cash flow, which is now likely to resume.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Hardly anyone knew about it - not even the shareholders - that Heineken quietly conducted business in Iran for years. The Dutch brewer introduced its non-alcoholic “Islamic beer” in 2018: the very year the United States tightened sanctions against Iran. https://t.co/GJ9h7gsFYH

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

The best guarantee of security guarantees is for Moscow to put an end to its expansionism and imperial ambitions. Occupying foreign territory is not the best way to secure concessions from other countries, but the Kremlin has perfected a diplomatic strategy that portrays itself as a victim.

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

The CEO of Google DeepMind just admitted that if the decision had been his, we would've cured cancer before anyone ever used ChatGPT.

And that's not even the scariest thing he said on a recent interview.

Demis Hassabis is one of the most important people alive in AI.

He won the Nobel Prize last year for AlphaFold, the system that cracked the 50 year protein folding problem. 3 million scientists now use his tool. Almost every new drug being developed will touch it at some stage.

In a new interview, he was asked about the moment ChatGPT launched and Google went into "code red." His answer was one of the most revealing things any AI leader has ever said on the record:

"If I'd had my way, I would have left AI in the lab for longer. Done more things like AlphaFold. Maybe cured cancer or something like that."

Read that again.

The man running Google's entire AI division is publicly saying the commercial AI race we're all living through was a MISTAKE. That the industry got hijacked by a chatbot when it could have been solving the biggest problems in science and medicine.

His vision was simple:

Build AI slowly, carefully, like CERN. Use it to crack root node problems one at a time. Cancer. Energy. New materials.

Let humanity benefit from real breakthroughs while the foundational science was figured out over a decade or two.

Then ChatGPT dropped in November 2022 and everything changed.

Demis described what happened next as getting locked into a "ferocious commercial pressure race" that none of the labs can escape from. On top of that, the US vs China dynamic added geopolitical pressure.

The result is everyone sprinting toward products instead of breakthroughs, shipping chatbots while the scientific opportunity gets buried under marketing cycles and quarterly earnings.

But he's not saying progress isn't happening...

He's saying the progress got redirected away from the things that actually matter most.

And then it got even scarier:

Because when Demis was asked what he worries about with AI, he laid out two threats.

The first is what everyone talks about: Bad actors using AI for harm. Terrorist groups. Hostile nation states. Cyberattacks at scale.

But that's not the threat he's most worried about.

His second worry is AI itself going rogue. Not today's models. The models coming in the next two to four years as the industry enters what he calls "the agentic era."

Systems that can complete entire tasks autonomously. Systems that are increasingly capable and increasingly hard to control.

His exact words:

"How do we make sure the guardrails are put in place so they do exactly what they've been told to do, and there's no way of them circumventing that or accidentally breaching those guardrails? That's going to be an incredibly hard technical challenge if you think about how powerful and smart and capable these systems eventually get."

A Nobel Prize winner who runs one of the 3 most advanced AI labs on Earth just said publicly that within two to four years, we're entering a phase where AI alignment becomes a real problem, and the technical challenge of solving it is enormous.

And almost nobody is paying enough attention.

He called for international cooperation between labs, AI safety institutes, and academia to tackle the problem. He said this is the thing even the experts aren't thinking about enough.

He said the only way to get through the AGI moment safely is if everyone starts treating this with the seriousness it deserves.

Most AI CEOs give you careful PR answers about "responsible development" and move on.

Demis said something different...

He said the commercial race FORCED us into a premature deployment of a technology we barely understand, and the window to get alignment right before the next generation of agents shows up is two to four years.

If the man who built the system that might cure cancer is telling you he wishes it had happened first, maybe we should listen to what he says is coming next.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

Netanyahu said Israel backed the US ceasefire with Iran but that the deal did not cover fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Pakistan’s prime minister had previously said that the agreed ceasefire covered “everywhere including Lebanon”.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

The White House needs to stop claiming that everything is fine on the Gulf front. Providing exaggerated and vague assessments is a Russian approach, one that is atypical for an American administration and detrimental to decision-making. Clearly, there is no 100% freedom of action in the skies over Iran, and the errors or oversights that led to the destruction and downing of equipment must be examined.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

“Уника България” е била компроментирана със зловреден софтуер в началото на 2025 г. Компанията е платила около 6 млн. евро откуп, за да декриптира системите си, уведомила е регулаторните органи, но не и клиентите си, от които са изтекли чувствителни здравни и финансови данни.

https://t.co/dgxuWjSUTk

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

On March 30, Bulgaria’s caretaker PM Andrey Gyurov flew to Kyiv and signed a 10-year security cooperation agreement with President Zelensky, covering joint drone and ammunition production, Ukraine's reconstruction, the Vertical Gas Corridor, and a landmark railway linking Greece’s Alexandroupolis to Odessa.

Zelensky called Bulgaria "a very important arms producer." He's not wrong. Bulgaria's defense industry already accounts for ~4% of GDP, and since 2022 it has been one of Ukraine's largest suppliers of artillery shells and small arms. The deal formalizes what was already a de facto partnership, and opens the door to joint drone manufacturing, with Ukraine bringing the tech expertise and Bulgaria bringing the production capacity.

📌 The Alexandroupolis–Odessa corridor is the sleeper story here.

This is not just a railway. It is a land-based substitute for the Turkish Straits. Since Ankara invoked the Montreux Convention in 2022 and closed the Bosphorus to warships, NATO has needed an alternative axis connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea. Alexandroupolis now handles a significant share of US military logistics in and out of Europe. The corridor, running directly through Bulgaria, transforms Sofia from a transit country into a core node of NATO's eastern flank infrastructure. Completion is expected around 2030, and railway costs will likely count toward Bulgaria's defense spending commitments.

Bulgaria's state gas company Bulgartransgaz already holds a 20% stake in the Alexandroupolis LNG terminal - a direct hedge against Russian energy dependence. The reconstruction of Ukraine, estimated at $500B–$1T+, offers a massive future market for Bulgarian construction, infrastructure, and manufacturing firms. Transit fees, logistics contracts, and long-term defense supply chains along the corridor represent concrete revenue streams.

The problem is that this agreement was signed by a caretaker government during an active election campaign, with no parliamentary approval. Gyurov himself argued the signing “does not require parliamentary approval, as it is a political act.” Acting President Yotova called the deal “inadequate,” arguing a caretaker cabinet has no mandate to bind the country for a decade, and described the text as “weak” and “outdated.” Former Pro-Russian President Radev accused the government of taking “long-term commitments that increase risks to national security” and treating the Constitution as “an empty word.”

Either way, the Alexandroupolis–Odessa corridor is the real long-term story, one that will define Bulgaria's role in European security for the next decade, regardless of which government ends up implementing it.

[Ruslan Trad @ruslantrad]

A common mistake when discussing the IRGC and its Qods Force is the belief that Qasem Soleimani created the unit - he inherited it and fundamentally transformed it into one of the most powerful, still, covert military instruments in the Middle East. The force predates his leadership by roughly a decade.

The Quds Force's roots trace back to the early days of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, specifically to the IRGC's Liberation Movements Unit, which began operations in March 1981. In June 1982, this unit hosted an international conference in Tehran for Islamist militia groups from across the Middle East and North Africa, and delegates formally demanded that Iran establish a dedicated Quds Force to support liberation movements. The IRGC also dispatched forces to Lebanon during its civil war, playing a crucial role in establishing Hezbollah in the early 1980s.

After the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, the IRGC was reorganized, and the Quds Force emerged as a formal, independent service branch - roughly around 1990 - absorbing veterans from IRGC intelligence and the Ramezan Base. Its earliest known predecessor was an internal unit called Department 900, created during the Iran-Iraq War as a special intelligence unit, which was later merged into the Special External Operations Department.

Soleimani was appointed commander of the Quds Force between 1997 and 1998, succeeding Ahmad Vahidi. He inherited a capable but relatively limited organization, and immediately set about restructuring and expanding it. He reorganized the force into separate country-specific departments, each with a dedicated commander accountable only to him personally.

Crucially, Soleimani created five entirely new operational branches: Intelligence, Finance, Politics, Sabotage, and Special Operations. These branches coordinated through a Council of Commanders chaired by Soleimani himself, giving the force a sophisticated, multi-domain architecture that resembled a hybrid intelligence-military-diplomatic agency.

Soleimani fundamentally shifted the Quds Force's modus operandi, moving away from direct terrorism toward a more sophisticated strategy of embedding within and empowering allied state and non-state actors. He deepened ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon, supported Hamas and Islamic Jihad. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, he exploited the power vacuum to build an extensive network of militia proxies there.

The Syrian civil war after 2011 marked the full maturation of his vision. Soleimani personally convinced Supreme Leader Khamenei to intervene on behalf of Assad, deploying Quds Force specialists and trained Iraqi militiamen into Syria en masse. He even oversaw the recruitment and training of Afghan and Pakistani Shia minorities to fight there. By the mid-2010s, till his killing in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020, Soleimani commanded a transnational armed network - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon - that Iran dubbed the Axis of Resistance. The structure is still active and is adapting.