being totally comfortable speaking this way to millions of people is one of many signals that we're in an extremely dark place

What was the Russian summer offensives in Ukraine in about? Did it achieve its goals based on its own merits? What can be expected from the Russian military's actions through the remainder of 2025 and into early 2026? @erwoods.bsky.social for ridl.io ridl.io/the-results-...

My latest article looking at the results of Russia's summer offensive. I argue the Sumy operation was a bit of a failure given the amount of elite forces involved, but Russia continues making progress in Donetsk Oblast. ridl.io/the-results-...

The Trump administration is deporting anti-Putin political asylum seekers, where they face the threat of torture or worse... theins.press/en/news/284453

There is no reason for armed troops to be in the nations capital. Full stop. Panhandlers in DuPont Circle are not a reason to do this. Are we looking at another Kent State?

If you are a hostile intelligence agency, you can get more out of a well-aimed rock at the right place and time today than entire Cold War expenditure of the KGB combined.

It's like a nesting doll of civil-military crises. Just today: 1. Head of DIA fired 2. Trump threatens to deploy Army to Chicago + NYC 3. Blurring of police + military in DC 4. Use of FBI in political attack on Bolton 5. Goons in DC curtailing basic civil rights

I'm unhappy to report that Huntington did not tell the military what to do if they were coopted into prosecuting American citizens on American soil

Note to self: start a “the Left is CENSORING me” grift to pay off student loans

Meanwhile we rank and file employees have been told that anything we print no matter how unclassified -- a copy of the DOD public home page -- must be disposed of in an NSA-certified shredder or we will be written up for a security violation

Putin "won", played Trump in #Alaska? Fact is, despite the summit hype/optics, the Ukraine war remains a strategic cul de sac for Russia Putin will it keep going - but he'll make Russia ill-prepared for an increasingly unruly Trumpian world, as I write: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/o...

Thus, it appears Trump has dropped his earlier demand for an immediate ceasefire before peace talks—a position Ukraine had previously accepted—and now supports negotiations on a lasting peace while fighting continues, a stance the Kremlin has consistently pushed since the last Istanbul talks.

With Russia knowledge like that, he'll probably be US ambassador to Moscow within the year.

Why are universities contemplating closing entire humanities and foreign language programs, you ask? This. This is why. What? You haven't heard about this existential threat to these subjects across Every. Single. R1. Research. University. in the country? No, I suspect that you haven't:

This is why I tell people not to look at splotches on the map. They don't tell you if it's a company sized element holding an area or a couple guys on motorcycles who will be dead before the map is updated.

I see that territorial adjustments that Trump promised are already happening. Best of luck to Lisa Murkowski on Russia's Federation Council

Brief BDA of the strike on the Shahed-launching base in Primorsko-Akhtarsk: Imagery shows 4 destroyed tent-like structures, likely used for storage. No signs of detonation, only burning. Launch rails and large storage facilities are intact. Drone launches appear to be continuing

Proffesor Saunders with the astute take on U.S. foreign policy (as always)

Sergei Kiriyenko continues to reshape Russia political landscape - now with arrests and searches of regional Communist Party offices. Kiriyenko aims to fully control the regional elites who still use "special" Russia party system to move things around ridl.io/when-they-ca...

Weird! Another badly researched defense article by a different author, but for the same reasons. Again: India hasn't announced a decision to acquire the Su-57 and India was involved in its developed but withdrew after spending ~$300 mil. due to tech and quality issues. www.msn.com/en-us/money/...

Oh dear…

The INF Treaty isn’t just dead; its last remnants are now incinerated and launched into deep space. meduza.io/en/news/2025...

Dima is going to take this as a win. He did something for once.

What happens when he discovers the rest of Medvedev’s tweets?

Did India stop buying Russian oil? Yes and No. Indian state refiners did reportedly stop buying Russian oil but Indian private refineries did not. Private refineries account for 60% of Indian purchases of Russia oil.

Detaing U.S. citizens at the airport, telling him he has no rights and demanding access to his personal information. FSB thuggery.

Isn’t one of the main things we’ve learned from the Ukraine war that NCO training can make or break an army? Why would technology and systems be more important than people?

The Supreme Court is poised to issue a summary 6-3 order without explanation stopping any lower court from interfering with the illegal firing of Powell.

Is it still the SVO if American cruise missiles are striking military factories in Peter and Moscow? Looking forward to Putin’s pretzel logic on this.

Pitch for new type of guy: Chinese natsec pro who is really quite disappointed that the Americans aren’t more of a challenge because this is getting boring, frankly.

In case people are wondering how things are going over on X, the everything app

All future FSOs will just be Heritage interns translating via Grok

Many people being fired from State are high-performing stars, one source said. They’re being pushed out because the Trump administration is cutting people based on what office they work in, not their individual skills. So that guy who speaks four languages including Mandarin? Doesn’t matter.

Twitter’s antisemitic Chatbot raises new questions about the lack of intellectual diversity on Bluesky.

grok to be announced new CEO of X

The sky over Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine the last few hours under massive Russian drone attack, via @war_monitor_ua. Putin underscoring his message to Trump today that Russia would continue its war with the aim of achieving its maximalist objectives; no interest in peace.

Every time I posted about how much my insurance was through the Exchange, people would say, “what are you talking about? I’m only paying $33 a month.” Those people are about to find out they were on Medicaid.

don’t let @arawnsley.bsky.social forget this happened

The chief manager of Russian domestic politics, Sergei Kirieynko is building a system of social engineering that should make any sort of politics, even imitational one obsolete. ridl.io/the-city-of-...

Good to know the president can, indeed, do whatever he wants.

Taiwan out here taking notes.

Nobody knows what the damage to Iran’s nuclear program was. We don’t even know where the 60% enriched uranium is. What we do know is Iran has that much more reason to move above 90% when they get the chance.

I've worked up an assessment of U.S. and Israeli missile defense interceptor expenditures since June 13 Based on video evidence AT LEAST, 39 THAAD, 34 Arrow-3, & ~9 Arrow-2s have been used. For more on the methodology, ABM sites in Israel, and implications, check out the article

Folks, we need to ask you for support once more. Our previous grant that covers most of publications has ended and we are still looking for a new one. Please donate so we can keep publishing with ridl.io ridl.io/donate/

Russia, lacking both the capacity to respond, and not wanting to upend the delicate dance with Donald Trump has really taken a back seat in supporting Iran. Russia and DPRK are closer than Russia and Iran. I explored this about a month ago in this article. ridl.io/russia-s-mil...

Something we'll see later today is people who label themselves "OSINT" interpreting the overhead photos. Unfortunately, many of those people do not know what they are doing and should be ignored. The three sets of photos I've seen so far are very different from each other.

DOD reports 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) dropped, so close to the entire stockpile used in this operation.

Knew the re-establish deterrence line would be recycled. This is not deterrence. How does SECDEF know Iran has been deterred? How do you maintain deterrence? For how long? With what resources? Ever hear of Schelling?

Is the war in Iran Biden's Katrina?

good thing he is scared of impeachment