Friends: Hein Goemans and I have a piece in Foreign Affairs explaining why negotiated peace is very unlikely because of Russia. foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/o…

Russia is in very deep trouble because its economy cannot sustain the war expenditures on the scale it needs to be able to advance for much longer. Even Moscow-based analysts now warn that 2025 would be dire indeed. But don't take my word for it. Here's an overview. 1/15

An old Soviet joke. The Russians arrest a Jew for studying Hebrew. “Why are you studying Hebrew in Russia? You will die before being allowed to go to Israel.” “When I die, I will go to heaven and everyone there will speak Hebrew.” “Ha! And what if you go to hell?” “I already speak Russian.”

Why are people surprised that the Russian economy can't take the strain of the war? In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, the US spent about 25% of the federal budget and 2.5% GDP on the war. Russia is now spending about 40% of its budget and 8% of GDP on the war. 1/3

June 1941, American publication. The more things change…

Putin says neutrality for Ukraine is necessary for peace but Ukraine WAS neutral when he seized Crimea and then invaded outright, so… ground.news/article/putin-sa…

This is so, so much worse, than the initial report suggested (and it was already extremely bad). DOGE are siphoning data and gaining access to systems without security precautions and the Russians — and likely Chinese and who knows who else — has probably broken into their amateurishly run operation and are seeing and recording everything. This is a scandal that should be career-ending for everyone involved, at the very least. Criminal charges for treason if it comes out it is not just incompetence.

The Russian peace arrived in Toretsk. And our fucking moron of a weasel masquerading as a StateSec congratulated the Russians on “Russia Day.” Fuck these dickheads that have betrayed everything America ever stood for. I hope they all burn in hell.

Listen to what Poland’s — POLAND! — Foreign Minister Sikorski is saying about Ukraine at the UN after the Russian ambassador referred to it as a “project”: “Ukraine is not a project. Ukraine is a country with a longer history than Russia. Ukraine is a member of this body for far longer than the Russian Federation. Ukraine has a history, language, identity, and aspirations all of its own, with borders confirmed several times in treaties by the Russian Federation. The mission of this body from its foundation has been to decolonize, not recolonize.” Everything he said is true. Yes, including the part of Ukraine being a UN member longer than the Russian Federation. Ukraine and Belarus are founding members separately from the Soviet Union. Russia claimed the Soviet seat in 1991 and the UN accepted the succession without a vote. Stalin has wanted all 16 Soviet republics to have votes in the UN because he would control them but the US would only agree to Ukraine and Belarus, in part because of the extraordinarily large sacrifices they had made fighting the Nazis. (The Baltics could not be admitted under the Soviet banner as the West did not recognize their annexation and doing so could have been seen as legitimizing the Soviet claim to these countries. The U.S. would never recognize the annexations and the Baltics maintained separate embassies in Washington during the entire Cold War.)

A Russian general visits the front line and as he’s driving by a wooded area, he hears someone shouting with an Ukrainian accent: “One Ukrainian soldier is better than 10 Russian soldiers! Annoyed, the general sends 10 Russian soldiers. Shooting, screams, nobody comes back. Then the same voice again: “One Ukrainian soldier is better than 100 Russian soldiers!” Aggravated, the general sends 100 Russian soldiers. Shooting, screams, nobody comes back. Then the same voice again: “One Ukrainian soldier is better than 1,000 Russian soldiers!” Furious, the general sends 1,000 soldiers. Shooting, screams, but this time, a badly wounded Russian soldier staggers out of the wood. The General asks, “What happened? Report!” The soldier replies, “It’s a trap, Sir. There’s two of them.”

Merz is excellent. He is the new leader of Europe. Merz: May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe... Trump: That was not a pleasant day for you. This was not a great day. Merz: No, in the long run this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship. Trump: It's true. Merz: And we know what we owe you but this is the reason I am saying that America is, again, in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So let's talk about what we can do jointly. Trump nods. Master class, absolute master class in how to handle Trump while being truthful, strong, and honest.

Putin has ordered the liberation of Kursk before the Jan inauguration of Trump. The Kremlin is pouring troops by the thousands there but they have stalled again. Losses are incredible because commanders know that if victory is achieved nobody will ask them about the cost. 1/8

Guys, you wouldn’t know it, but Russia lost a million men because it was totally holding back in Ukraine.

Ukraine — the bulwark against Russian tyranny.

One interesting aspect of the Ukrainian Kursk incursion is that Russian civilians did not clamor to get arms to fight the invaders, did not organize spontaneously into territorial defense units, and did not try to resist. 1/3

Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Ukraine. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your crocodile tears or his leg. He went to Ukraine to murder people for money. He should have died there.

You guys remember how Trump agreed with Afghan President Ghani for US to develop rare minerals there and how this totally prevented Trump from selling him out to the Taliban & how the U.S. immediately helped repel the Taliban when they attacked?

I never knew this existed until you posted it. Dafuk are you watching, man?

The U.S. has given an ultimatum to Ukraime: recognize Crimea as Russian, abandon any attempt to join NATO, and agree to a neutral zone around Zaporizhzhia NPP (to be managed by the U.S.). Ukraine has until the London meeting tomorrow to respond. The proposal offers nothing to Ukraine — it’s just a list of things the US will take to Putin to see if he can be appeased. The complete collapse of the American security architecture could not have been more shameful.

U.S. with Clinton: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We’re going to reset relations! Russia: *invades Chechnya, twice* U.S. with Bush: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We’re going to reset relations so Putin can help fight global terrorism! Russia: *invades Georgia* U.S. with Obama: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We’re going to reset relations! Russia: *annexes Crimea, intervenes in Syria* U.S. with Trump: We have a totally new approach to Russia! I’m very strong! Putin loves me and respects me! Russia: *makes bases in Syria permanent, expands operations to Africa, violates all ceasefires in Ukraine* U.S. with Biden, part 1: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We’re going to not permit it to attack Ukraine by doubling the number of blankets Obama sent. Russia: *invades Ukraine* U.S. with Biden, part 2: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We are not going to allow Ukraine to win! Russia: I hear you! U.S. with Trump: We have a totally new approach to Russia! We’re going to try help it win in Ukraine! Russia: … It’s the same fucking approach.

The Hungarians need a history lesson. Hungary did not give up 2/3 of its lands for peace. As the junior partner in the Austria-Hungarian Empire, it participated in starting World War I, lost it. and got partitioned. The Hungarians hated the Treaty of Trianon so much that they even had a slogan, “No, no, never!”, about it. But they didn’t stop at the slogan. They worked hard with the German Nazis and the Italian fascists to recover these territories: - 1938: Germany and Italy gave them southern Slovakia and southern Carpatho-Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia - 1939: Hungary occupied the rest of Carpatho-Ruthenia after rump Czechoslovakia surrendered to Hitler - 1940: Germany gave Hungary Northern Transylvania at Romania’s expense - 1941: after Germany invaded Yugoslavia, Hungary occupied and annexed parts of Vojvodina, Croatia, and Sloven By 1941, Hungary, in collaboration with the Nazis, had recovered the territories it had “given up for peace.” Hungary joined the Axis in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 but performed so poorly that its government decided to betray Hitler by negotiating a separate peace — the Germans occupied it in 1944 instead. Hungary switched sides late that year but it was too late as the Red Army was already advancing. Hungary thus lost the second world war as well. In the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties, all its gains were annulled and it was essentially scaled back to its Trianon borders. Because that’s what happens when you are the aggressor in wars you lose. Hungary didn’t give up anything for peace. It started wars of conquest, was defeated, and was forced to give up its ill-gotten gains.

Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Ukraine. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your crocodile tears or his leg. He went to Ukraine to murder people for money. He should have died there.

Vance has no moral compass, which is why he simply cannot fathom how normal people think.

Mearsheimer has been wrong about Ukraine for over a decade. Why is anyone listening to his garbage? Here he was in 2015, explaining how Russia is already winning in Donbas. He was so fucking clueless he didn’t even know the “separatists” were in fact losing and the Russian military had to intervene directly to prevent a total defeat. Even after that, Ukraine stabilized the situation and within a year very few people would be dying in Donbas. In fact, one of the main reasons Putin invaded in 2022 was because his strategy of destabilizing Ukraine by keeping the conflict in the east festering had failed completely. Mearsheimer is absolutely clueless about any of this. Always has been. He’s the idiot’s idea of a smart analyst: sounds profound but is in fact simplistic. The idiots begin to think themselves smart because even they can understand him.

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we are going to see a lot of accounts pushing, effectively, for civil war in the US. This includes the rage-baiter in chief, Elon Musk, but also an army of Russian and Chinese bots and their faithful shills in the West. Do not succumb to the rhetoric. We do not want or need Years of Lead here in the US. Political violence of any sort only harms our society and empowers our enemies. Stand firm on principles that have served us well for many decades. Perpetrators of such violence must be brought to justice. They cannot be used as an excuse to engage in more violence.

Here’s how the UNSC meeting will go. Russia: It wasn’t us, show proof. Poland shows proof. Russia: The Ukrainians stole them and launched them. Poland shows proof they were launched from Russia and Belarus. Russia: The were supposed to go Ukraine but Kyiv Nazi regime purposefully deflected them with EW measures to incite wider war. Poland shows proof drones had modifications for extending their range. Russia: NATO is pro-war and we want peace. Also, we want land. Also, all our other demands must be satisfied. China: We stand for world peace and Kumbaya group singing every other Wednesday. UNSC adjourns.

This is the most brazen distortion of history that this woman has engaged in. She is either too stupid to understand that the Kremlin NEVER intended for the Minsk Agreements to work — they were a way of putting pressure on Kyiv to submit to Moscow — or she is an absolutely shameless liar. My money is on the latter. Merkel is one of the principal architects of the war. Her naive idea to sell Ukraine for the sake of getting cheap gas from Russia in peace didn’t just fail: it created the conditions that made the war inevitable. She has blood on her hands and she will be remembered for her duplicity.

What Kirk was doing wasn’t debate — it was clickbait nonsense designed to generate maximum ridicule and outrage by showing him “demolishing” and “owning” some very passionate but woefully uninformed purple-haired lesbian student in a way that would perfectly fit the prejudices of his audience. Fact is: many of his positions are easily dismantled, especially if one doesn’t get distracted by his deflections and attempts to shoehorn the discussion into silly “yes or no” positions. Real debate is nuanced and complex, and tends to put modern audiences to sleep. Revenue generator it is not.

Ukraine was neutral, non-aligned, and non-nuclear when the rapacious bunker dwarf took Crimea and unleashed war in Donbas in 2014. He’s just as full of shit now when he demands the right of conquests that he can’t complete as a reward for his unilateral aggression while pretending that it would somehow lead to peace. Nobody should listen to the ravings of this deranged war criminal with delusions of grandeur.

US suffered 364,510 casualties w/ 200M population (0.18%) over 7 years of war. The Russians have suffered about 700K casualties out of 144M (0.49%) in less than 3 years. The US economy could not take the strain of the Vietnam War. The Russian economy isn't magical. 3/3

Mearsheimer has been wrong about this conflict since 2014. None of his predictions came true. He’s been predicting the imminent fall of Ukraine for 3.5 years. I don’t blame him for running a profitable scam — I am just astonished that there are enough blistering idiots there to keep buying his garbage.

My god, the West seems to have an inexhaustible supply of total cretins.

So it is. I can’t even begin to describe how an Eastern European who grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain feels about this. VoA and RFE were the beacons of hope, the window into what the free world looked like, and they gave people hope to persist and eventually bring down the communist regimes that many thought would last forever.

Putin might be realizing that he can't have his goals by fighting. Kursk escalation & IRBM are signals that he is maneuvering for better position & trying to scare West into pushing UA to concede. Let's hope that our leaders do not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 15/15

Another somewhat infuriating thing is listening to Russian complaining how they supported the SVO, did their patriotic duty, and now are left defenseless -- and then asking why the Ukrainians are attacking them. The disconnect from reality is nearly total. 3/3

My prediction is that Orbán will be out of power next year and Ukraine will eventually join NATO.

The statement makes it very clear that he’s not interested in education. It’s irrelevant what his scores are then — he wouldn’t be admitted into any top school because of this. And no, it’s not nearly as subjective as people make it out to be. Here’s what he said himself:

For fuck’s sake, can someone at the fucking Guardian NOT write a pro-Kremlin headline? The Russians have launched daily attacks on Ukrainian cities for 3 years, and recently have been doing this on a massive scale — hundreds of drones and missiles — and this fucking excuse for a journalist is writing that a Ukrainian attack on their air bases is “escalation.” Fuck these fucking fucks and fucking fucks who finance them. Fuck them.

As I’ve been saying, the U.S. will come to regret forcing Europe to arm — the loss of our influence there will be fast & furious. And to the people dismissing Europe as a weak “has been,” boy, are you up for some very rude awakening.

Marco, what part of judicial review do you not understand as a concept? Or are you saying POTUS can do whatever the hell he wants? Any comment on your boss saying he would send US citizens to Salvadoran prisons? Do you have one shred of integrity left?

I have only two words to describe this traitor: Kremlin cunt.

Absolutely. Fucking. No. The sanctions are imposed because Russia invaded a peaceful neighbor, and has been committing war crimes daily. They should not be removed until its criminal regime collapses.

Lots of doom & gloom about Ukraine, so let me remind you: 1) RU gains are steady but small, extremely costly, and at a time when UA is at weakest (exhausted from last year offensive and without significant Western support since start of year) 1/3

Biden is said to consider advancing Ukraine's NATO bid on the West German model (which did not require the territorial integrity of Germany and only extended the security guarantees to areas under the control of the West German government). 1/8

An old joke from communist Bulgaria adapted to modern audiences (see below how) At the Socialist Coffee Shop - I would like a medium coffee. - That would be $6. - Wait, it was $3 yesterday! - Yes, now it’s $6. - Is it double in size? - No. - So the price went up? - Comrade, this isn’t a rotten capitalist country. We do not have price increases. The coffee is $3. The other $3 is for the brotherly nation of Angola. - Ah, that makes sense. Here’s $6 then. - Alright, here’s $3 change. - Wait, I thought the coffee was $6? - We are out of coffee. (If you are curious, the original is with boza instead of coffee and the prices were 6 and 12 stotinki — which is what I grew up with.)

Yeah. bro. Putin totally planned to get stuck in eastern Ukraine for four years, lose a million men, and turn Russia into a Chinese satrapy. The amount of desperate cope coming from Kremlin imbeciles these days is just amusing to watch.

Actual image of NATO right now:

Putin should demand immediate NATO membership for Ukraine to secure Russia from future attacks.

"There is no other option: No one should remain alive in Ukraine" This is the headline of an article published today in RIA, the official news agency of the Kremlin. How about everyone who peddled stories about "NATO made them do it" or "protecting Russian speakers in Donbas" just go fuck themselves right about now? I am typing this as Kyiv air defenses are furiously firing at what sound like Shaheds. It's a real heartfelt fuck you from me.

Sachs was never at Euromaidan -- he went to Ukraine after it was over, when the new government invited him for economic consultations. At the time, he called the Crimean annexation an act of Russian aggression, and somehow failed to mention the bribes he was allegedly told were being distributed to people in Maidan.

Honestly, fuck these guys. This is absolute malpractice. Whoever penned this drivel in 2025 must be fired from any job remotely related to anything that involved analysis. The braindead repetition of long discredited “explanations” — now supported with mountains of direct evidence — can only be deliberate. Nobody can possibly be that fucking dumb. Except this guy. He’s that fucking dumb.

Aaaaaahahahahahahahahaha!

In 1968, the US GDP per capita was about $13,817. Adjusted in chained 2023 dollars, it is equivalent to $31,500 today. In 2023, the Russian GDP per capita was $13,817, or barely 44% of the US income half a century ago. 2/3

The Russian economy is tanking faster than I expected, and now even state-affiliated economists in Moscow report that 2025 is probably going to be absolutely dire, with things getting worse after that. 2/8

LOL

They fled -- often without any help from authorities, leaving their belongings to looters, complained in videos to Putin -- where they blamed the bad bureaucrats & begged for help, or just stayed put to wait it out. 2/3

It would be astonishingly stupid and I hope the Ukrainians would not agree to give up their one strong hand. Right now, it seems Putin has decided that they would not, hence the desperate push in Kursk. 8/8

At this rate, Merkel is looking into retirement in a dacha on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. What, in the world, does she think she’s doing?

Europeans: Americans don’t know any history! Brits:

What the actual fuck, @nytimes?!?!? Publishing straight Kremlin bullshit written by a Putin shill who lives in Moscow and gets escorted around by Chechens? Are you fucking kidding me now?!?!?!?

Disgraceful. You are a moral stain on America.

The Soviet era depots are running very low and Russia is simply incapable of producing enough equipment to make up for the gargantuan losses. Putin has funded his terrorist war with these stocks. Once they are gone, the Russian war machine is going to grind to a halt. 3/8

The EU issued 565,069 Schengen visas to Russians in 2024, a 21% increase from the previous year, with the rejection rate dropping to 7.4%, far below the global average of rejections, which is 14.8%. Italy alone granted about 30% of these (134,141). Because... Westerners are resolutely determined to keep their heads in the sand. Russia is waging war on Europe and these guys are thinking how to make it more convenient for the Russians to travel there.

Putin: Why is there no water in Donetsk? Answer: Because it was conquered by assholes from a country where a fifth of the population doesn’t even have indoor plumbing and a quarter does not have access to safe drinking water.

The ruble has sunk to 104 to US$. With the exception of the brief period right at the outset of the invasion, it has not been so weak since the dreary years after the collapse of the USSR. Back in 2022, the Central Bank intervened to prop the value of the ruble & it worked. 2/15

Here’s a typical absolute bullshit “gotcha.” Kirk did say that black women didn’t have the brain processing power to be taken seriously — the clip is widely available. The supposed defense is that he listed several specific black women rather than saying “all” black women. The wording isn’t exact, but it also doesn’t need to be: for anyone familiar with Kirk, the meaning was clear. Yet these guys now demand 100% precision, probably down to the punctuation marks. Obviously, anything presented as a quote must be quoted exactly. Just as obviously, when a paraphrase preserves the plain meaning, it’s silly to argue that the meaning would somehow change if the exact words were used. So here’s the correct quote: “If we would have said three weeks ago… that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheela Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would’ve been called… racists. But now they are coming out and they are saying it for us. They are coming out and they are saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ We know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.” So yeah — it’s hard to argue he was speaking only about those four specific black women, because if that were the case, he wouldn’t have added the bit about “a white person’s slot.” The paraphrase is correct, even if it should not have been framed as a direct quote. And yes, I’m pretty sure this idiot rage-baiter isn’t going to be paying $10,000 to anyone despite that.

Many people don’t know this, but Stalin killed over 10 million Soviet citizens and Mao killed over 40 million Chinese. Meanwhile, in the entire 20th century, the American and British governments killed fewer of 1,000 of their own citizens in internal repression (labor union unrest, Troubles-related incidents, etc.) Needless to say, they didn’t starve anyone to cannibalism and death.

If half the Ukrainian army has deserted, why is the mighty Russian military still stuck? Are they having trouble walking or something?

For those keeping score, the second military power in the world attacked, unprovoked, its smaller neighbor, and squandered 50 years of Soviet built stocks and over half a million casualties without achieving any of its goals. Citing Mearsheimer now is a sign of mental illness.

This man is a clinical idiot. I do not mean that metaphorically. He is plain stupid.

A reminder that Oklahoma has the worst schools in the US already and it has nothing to do with alleged radical leftist teachers. It is because of people like this doofus.

Mearsheimer is a disgrace to the profession. If the Russians are so fucking awesome and nothing we do helps Ukraine, then why the fuck are their hordes stuck in Donbas for 3 years? Are they lost because they don’t have access to google maps? Did they suffer over a million casualties because they tripped over the flowers with which the Ukrainians welcomed them? He is also outright lying: no serious analyst who advocated getting these weapons to Ukraine claimed they would win the war. These are the fantasies of a map-bound cretin high on his own supply. We all said they would help, and they have. How does anyone listen to this guy even now, after a decade of failed predictions? What a clown. 🤡

The RU economy is overheating due to massive spending on defense sector & CB seems unable to contain the inflation resulting from too much money chasing too few consumer products because the economy is focused on producing military hardware that gets blown up by Ukrainians. 5/15

The idiots in the White House — a bunch of small-minded mafia-style dons who think like rulers of a banana republic — really have no clue who they are dealing with when it comes to Ukraine. The Guardian reveals that Vance tried to contact Zaluzhnyi for a possible replacement to Zelenskyy after the White House fiasco. He refused to meet with him and told Zelenskyy instead. Do these cretins imagine they can just install someone in Kyiv? After what the Ukrainians did to stop the Kremlin from doing just that? And how do they imagine this would happen? There’s a very good chance Zaluzhnyi will run for President when Ukraine has elections after the war ends. He’s the second most popular figure in Ukraine after Zelenskyy. But if he wins, it will be because the Ukrainians want him. And if Washington found Zelenskyy difficult, I can’t imagine what they will think of the General. Source: theguardian.com/world/ng-int…

However, because of the enormous drag of the wartime economy, Nabiullina has been having to run ever harder just to stay in place. The interest rate which started climbing steadily last year has now reached 21% and is expected to go up again in December. 3/15

The idiocy of this man is bottomless. The problem isn’t that federal agencies have too many employees, but the opposite: many are woefully understaffed.

The movie Oppenheimer seems to have revived the debate about the role of the nukes in ending the Pacific War. They did, but not in the way people seem to imagine. A thread. 1/14

Inflation is expected to hit 8% to 8.5% this year according to official projections, more than double the Bank's target of 4%. The official figures, however, belie a grim reality for individual consumers, for whom inflation has gone up by 22.1% since September last year. 4/15

Ukraine is trying to hold onto Kursk because it’s a valuable hand. Putin will be seen as a loser if fighting ends with Russian territory under foreign occupation irrespective of any gains in Ukraine (Russians don’t see as really Russian). He will have to make concessions. 5/8

Mearsheimer is a lunatic. He has shredded every claim to scholarly legitimacy and has become a full on Kremlin shill. What an utter embarrassment. According to him, Ukraine must abandon any hope of NATO, disarm, and accept the loss of 20% of its territory. There’s realism (reality), there’s “Realism” (a silly game played by tenured professors who have played too much Risk and not bothered to learn about reality), there’s “Offensive Realism” (as in, offensive to reason) that Mearsheimer has peddled for years, and then there’s this — a morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest bullshit that this guy peddles in service of war criminals.

What this sounds to me is that Putin is making a final push to reclaim Kursk and enter ceasefire negotiations with as much Ukrainian territory as he can. 4/8

It’s amazing that you somehow manage to tie your shoelaces seeing how stupid you are.

The Russians are getting tired of the war. 52% want to go to peace talks (from 35% in 4/22). If you read Western media, you would think that Russia has been winning over the past 10 months. Except many Russians do not think so. 14/15

Putin has to keep increasing compensation for military service because demand is far outstripping supply, and because he really does not want open mobilization. The state paid out $32bn (8% of its budget, or about 1.5% GDP) in soldiers and families of the dead in 2023-24. 7/15

The Russian war criminals are operating concentration camps in occupied territories in Ukraine. This is the most morally unambiguous war since WW2, and somehow this American government is contriving to be involved on the wrong side.

If you thought Gabbard is an incompetent hack who should have never gotten anywhere near the intel agency, you were wrong. She’s so much worse.

My fear is that the pusillanimous West is going to try to force Kyiv to withdraw from Kursk in order to get the Russians to talk. (This is what the Kremlin is demanding.) 7/8

The exit of Western companies, sanctions & tighter loopholes that even China enforces are squeezing RU economy. It did not happen as fast as people hoped, but it's happening faster than I thought. That's why a major demand for ceasefire is immediate removal of sanctions. 11/15

So… basically it turns out that @ElbridgeColby is not the China hawk we all thought he was. He’s a surrender monkey who’s trying to concede the Pacific to the Chinese without even an attempt to mount a defense. I wonder if he’s letting them have Hawaii before we have to defend our West Coast all by ourselves, having abandoned all the allies in Asia that we cultivated for decades. Ah, and because he is so afraid of the Chinese, he wants us to also abandon Europe to the Russians so that we can have more tanks for said coastal defense. Is he planning defense in depth? Maybe after conceding the coast and digging in somewhere in the Grand Canyon? Or maybe they moved Space Command from Colorado to Alabama because he’s retrenching East of the Mississippi? Make it make sense. What a fucking lunatic.

Russia isn’t a sponsor of terrorism — it is a terrorist state ruled by war criminals whose only language is force.

Kremlin allocates 40% of its budget to military & plans to increase it by 27% next year. This surpasses total spending on education, healthcare, and social services (not seen since Soviet times). Deficit will be 2% of GDP with half of National Welfare Fund already drained. 8/15

Merkel’s legacy just keeps sinking faster than the Titanic. Der Spiegel just published an explosive article detailing how Germany was training Russian military personnel at the combat training center in Altmark until the annexation of Crimea in 2014. They practiced realistic combat scenarios without live ammunition. Putin had planned to establish similar centers in Russia with Rheinmetall set to supply equipment worth up to €1 billion. Despite warnings from politicians, Merkel’s government supported this initiative.

Nabiullina asked Putin to curb access to credit. Instead, he signed a law (11/23) to forgive up to 10M rubles in unpaid debt incurred prior to 12/1/24 for anyone who signs up to fight in UA & their families. It also extends 30-day debt holiday for soldiers to 180 days. 6/15

Stop projecting, Tomi. Not everyone is an attention-seeking whore.

While I agree with the conclusion of this article, the analysis is flawed in several aspects. It suggests that Russian society is unified in mobilization for war and things are going great for Putin. The evidence & logic, however, are… meh. 1/11 theatlantic.com/internationa…

Nabiullina warned that factory capacity utilization surpasses 80% and that 73% of enterprises face labor shortages (nearly double from last year). The record-low unemployment of 2.4% means that the economy is basically working at its limits. 9/15

Fucking @ElbridgeColby, man. I’ve had dealings with this cretin before he got appointed and always knew he would be really bad news for our foreign policy in general but Ukraine in particular. He’s a one-track mind fixated on China with astonishingly shallow understanding of strategy.

“Never forget that England imposed this war on us” Says the banner above Goebbels’s head as he delivers a speech in 1942. The original from which the Kremlin cribbed “the Anglo-Saxons made us do it”. If it worked for the Nazis then, why wouldn’t it work for the fascists now?

The Russians seem to have paid a couple of foreigners to go to Ukraine and parade about with Nazi symbols for a photo op that’s supposed to prop the lie that Ukrainians are Nazis. I guess the happless idiots didn’t know that public displays of Nazi symbols are punishable by up to 5 years in prison (10, if done by public officials or if repeat offenders) under a 2015 law — the two were quickly arrested by the police. This is from the old Soviet playbook that had agents paint swastikas in the West.

2) Putin knows this — ask yourself why RU is so desperate for victories at any cost of time was on their side — it isn’t, and the Kremlin knows it. Have faith in Ukrainians, call your rep in Congress to demand aid, demand Biden to get rid of escalation managers and lead instead

That you?