The State Department has just put out a tender, offering funding of up to $3 million to European organizations who want to fight against "Supra-national institutions" - presumably the EU - and governments who seek to regulate the internet and end Western Civilization. www.state.gov/drl-nofo-dev...

This seems to me like a bad move at a time when Ukraine has been having battlefield success. Fedorov has a high reputation, not only in the West but in UA, & has been effective at getting innovative tech deployed, & laser-focused on increasing the human & material cost of the war to Russia.

The decision to replace Fedorov is a disaster. When the war is over, there will be two biographies of Zelensky: one about his role as a wartime leader and public diplomacy figurehead; the other about his role in domestic politics. One will be very flattering. The other, I expect, not so much.

Absolutely disgraceful stuff from Mark Galeotti. Whatever knowledge and expertise he may have, promoting the idea that Ukrainian civilians are merely "collateral damage" and are "getting in the way" of Russia hitting its real targets ought to be disqualifying. 🧵

Russia strikes Kharkiv every single day. ​I rarely write about it anymore. Not many people seem to care, and the news outlets never mention it. Posting about it feels like screaming into a void. If Russia can kill 30 people in a capital city full of journalists without any global outrage, ​

The findings of the OSCE report about militarization of children under Russian occupation (link below) should come as little surprise. Ukrianians have been highlighting this process since 2022 (and even before, esp. in Crimea). The intent is cultural genocide.🧵 odihr.osce.org/sites/defaul...

What we’re seeing play out in real time is a lot of individuals and institutions who’ve spent four years feigning solidarity with Ukraine getting tired of keeping the mask on.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is once again sharpening his rhetoric against Vladimir Putin, signaling a broader shift in Kyiv's public messaging as the war enters a new phase

So apparently Russian soldiers are now living in my maternal grandma’s house. The one that belongs to me, where I spent my childhood. They cut down all the trees. The green apple I liked to climb and read books at, cherry trees, the two apricots, walnut trees, pear trees, plum tree, everything

I am very afraid that Russia has turned me into a refugee. It's ridiculous. My apartment is here. Windows, doors, all fine. My building is nice and modern. We have a big cargo elevator thats big enough for my bike to fit comfortably. But I really do not know if I can stay here any longer.

I'm in Vyshneve. I'm not doing well, to be honest. Half the streets are closed and smoke is still waiting through the town. Most buildings don't have power.

The overnight missile raid on Kyiv is currently counting casualties in the dozens. Multiple apartment building throughout the city and beyond have been hit, and detonations are continuing to be reported in the city outskirts as of 6 am Kyiv time.

Follow the latest on the war at @english.nv.ua.

Russia and its proxies are seething about this decision because disseminating content through news aggregators and other third party sites is a tactic that Russia has used to get around sanctions on RT, etc. since 2022.

so many people have sort of meme'd themselves into an anti-anti-Russia position primarily because they think Putin's Russia is an ally to anti-Western forces (which in part it is, though primarily more to the right than the left)

It's also pathetic and humiliating that Quincy bros and "Russia experts" are gushing about the blog of some guy who hangs out with "Big Serge" and "Russians with Attitude" and makes "khoholodomor" jokes in the "Team War Kriminal" group chat.

Incredible news that John Mearsheimer, cited by many as an important and authoritative voice in the discourse about Ukraine, likes to cite twitter accounts called "Big Serge," run by public employees in Idaho, as incisive analysts on the war.

This article annoys me because it was patently obvious within the first week of the full-scale that Putin was utterly delusional, and we knew he was micromanaging a made up war in the first year. If he wasn't delusional, he never would have tried to invade! www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

So interesting that Katrina van den Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation, is also on the board of Quincy. Meanwhile, Quincy's Anatol Lieven, also associated with Valdai and Orban's MCC, is on the board of van den Heuvel's American Committee for US-Russia Accord.

Curious that Putin has started resurrecting the idea of "Novorossiya." Will be interesting to see if he continues with it. When was the last time he mentioned it, anyways?

A useful reminder of the moral and ethical perils western scholars put themselves in when collaborating with or accepting awards and prizes from organizations like the Russian Geographical Society (to say nothing of participating in things like the Valdai Club) pointmedia.io/story/6a3e9e...

I'm not sure if she's on Bsky, but Tamara Krawchenko and I just published a piece for The Conversation, related to the much longer essay I put on Medium yesterday, about the "NATO expansion" myth and the deportation & russification of Ukrainian children. theconversation.com/ukraines-sto...

Happy to say I've finally gotten around to finishing an essay about the "NATO expansion" myth. It was intended originally for the newsletter, but it got too big so I put it on Medium instead. As always, it's free for everyone, so please have a read! medium.com/@geogvma/the...

Fascinating how "present" Russia is at these Olympics, despite being barred from competing: "neutral" athletes; flags everywhere; "apolitical" sports fans going on about how "Russia should be there"; and indeed in the IOC's own repeated efforts to deny Ukrainians a voice.

Dictators think they reside in a fortress, insulated from the people. In truth, they depend on elites to act as pillars of their regimes. Popular resistance can force those pillars to break away. Part two of my series on the downfall of Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos:

My latest: Dictators are not omnipotent. They depend for support on security forces, business elites, party allies, civil servants, and ordinary people. Deprive him of that support, and he’s just a man, isolated and powerless. Understanding this will be the key to removing Trump. /n

⚡️Kyiv residents are vowing to never surrender as brutal Russian missile strikes leave the capital frozen without heat or power in subzero temperatures.

Renee Good's family is accusing federal immigration officers of killing the Minneapolis mother of three as she attempted to follow agents' instructions, and have now hired the same law firm that represented George Floyd's family to press for answers and accountability.

Russia’s senior military leadership is significantly exaggerating the amount of Ukrainian territory its forces have captured, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s General Staff said

A little article I posted a bit over a month ago but forgot to mention here, I guess. A look at how popular culture and media can shape (or reaffirm) what we know (or think we know) about the world. open.substack.com/pub/geogvma/...

Until this morning, Ukraine had no missiles left for air defense systems, Zelenskyy said. A major package arrived this morning. Launchers without missiles can’t protect cities. When deliveries move slowly, Ukraine pays in blood and lives. Words don’t intercept strikes. Air defense does.

Holy shit. Renee Good was alive when the bystander physician asked to check her pulse. She was alive when ICE refused to let him help. She was alive when they told him “I don’t care.” www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

Pritzker: The Insurrection Act is designed for circumstances where your rights can’t be protected by local authorities This is exactly the opposite. Your civil rights are being infringed upon by CBP and ICE, and then they want to call in troops claiming that they’re protecting CBP and ICE.

Over the past week, Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure have left people across the country without electricity, heating, and water amid subzero temperatures. The Kyiv Independent team is reporting from Kyiv, where prolonged blackouts have forced us to adapt.

Who'd have thought the horseshoe theory would ever manifest as Trump's and Chomsky's fans both using the same excuse for their cult leader's relationship with one of the worst sex traffickers in modern times.

Who chose Steve Witkoff? Putin www.wsj.com/world/putin-...

One silver lining in the US-Russia rapprochement is that it’s forced mouthpieces like Aaron to shift to the much more ridiculous and less believable narrative that the EU is “war crazy” and waging a “Ukraine proxy war” against the country they all used to buy gas from. /1

It's fear masquerading as contempt. Rightwing America does not want a Europe that is its own geopolitical power.

Exhibit B: Lawrence, Kansas (that one little spot all the way on the east of the map where the district dips south into Douglas county)

Hey friends, I've got a new article up on The Checkpoint! It's a long-delayed companion to my Medium article about geopolitics and uses the example of the (canceled) BBC show "Ambassadors" to explore how popular culture can shape how we understand the world. geogvma.substack.com/p/ambassador...

The "Return Every Child" report exposes how Russian authorities are ripping Ukrainian children from their homes, erasing their identities, and reshaping them to serve an authoritarian state. www.warchild.org.uk/returneveryc...

Here is my read of the "peace plan" and how Kirill Dmitriev played the American media to force this thing into being -- with an incompetent White House scrambling to make it seem like this was somehow coordinated and well-planned. open.substack.com/pub/macspaun...

If reporters could remove their lips from Trump's backside for a minute b/c he didn't act like a flaming asshole in a photo op with Mamdani, perhaps they could focus on the fact he (Trump) is selling out Ukraine to the Russians. I don't know, just a thought.

😡 Russians hit a supermarket in Zaporizhzhia, at least 5 people injured The store and nearby houses were damaged. All the injured are already receiving assistance. One of the local ATB supermarkets was hit.

Footage has surfaced online showing unarmed Ukrainian prisoners of war executed while lying face down, accompanied by the approving shouts of those filming the scene. This is not an isolated atrocity, it is russia’s pattern. Execution. Torture. Destruction.

🥴🇭🇺 Orban: Hungary will now block absolutely any aid to Ukraine. Europeans must immediately and unconditionally support the peace initiative of the United States. In addition to supporting the U.S. President, we must without delay launch autonomous and direct negotiations with Russia.

On Nov. 21, Ukraine marks the Day of Dignity and Freedom — a commemorative date that coincides with the start of the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity and the 2004 Orange Revolution. 🔗: link.nv.ua/AaMN85

As I said on Twitter, the perversity of ghouls like this feigning outrage about occupying Gaza and depriving Palestinians of self-determination and dignity while both of them are calling for Ukraine to suffer that exact fate "for their own good" proves once again that they're dishonest frauds. /1