By far the most fascinating item in Budanov's office from his Babel interview. First Class Medal of Duty from the Sudanese govt dated September 2023, when a "Ukrainian military source" told CNN that Ukrainian special forces were helping attack Russian Wagner Group-backed Sudanese RSF with FPV drones

Why Ukraine is now the sole superpower: that power is more than its innovative weapons, it's the courage to use them to defend freedom with moral clarity & conviction

Russian radioactive recklessness

The delicious irony of Putin passing up a real opportunity in 2021 from Biden to "test what was possible" in closing the door to NATO missiles in Ukraine, which he was purportedly afraid of, & now being terrified every night of Ukraine's own long range strike weapons fast tracked under the gun 🕹️🚀🔥🏭🛢️

This story is so SVO (Special Military Operation) 🇷🇺 mir. Traffic cops stop a SVOshnik carrying 2 drones. Drones aren't illegal ("They probably just wanted some money from him anyways"). Then one cop says it's a shame they've returned & weren't all killed there like in WW2. Ivan Filippov nails it 👇

AI please delete yourself from my feed

Alexei Navalny was the future Russians could have had. @faridaily.bsky.social

I was so relieved to find my Azovstal bracelet in the marshes right where I hoped I lost it yesterday. Even after the tide came in & went out. I got it just before Christmas 2022 & never take it off. It's a worn down, battered, tough as steel miracle of Ukraine 🇺🇦🔱

US company Allied Minerals told @kyivindependent.com it is "monitoring the situation" 🫣 as it runs its factory next to Russia's massive Iranian Shahed drone manufacturing complex. So excited about "many years to come!" before the war but now it's missing from Allied map of worldwide locations 🙈

"Glide bombs have had greater impact than almost any other weapon: cost-effective, sufficiently accurate & launch aircraft remain at stand-off distances up to 100 km" Ukraine must hit RU air defense to minimize risk to its precious F16s to shoot down fighter bombers. www.japcc.org/online-featu...

Fascinating Bloomberg interview with war hero former Head of Ukraine military intelligence GUR & now President Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov. In response to speculation that the switch was somehow designed to sideline him politically he said "So do you really think I've become weaker?" 🫡

This is what we're up against, too. Maybe worse. But if Hungarians can pull off a landslide so massive that it crushes a rigged electoral system, so can we. All we need is a stubbornly courageous candidate to rally round. Read @bogatatimar.bsky.social thread threadreaderapp.com/thread/20437...

Iran's asymmetric response to blockade teased yday Tired: Strait of Hormuz Wired: Bab al-Mandeb Strait Won't take much to increase risk perception & spook insurers. Increased exports of Saudi pipeline oil via Yanbu port have compensated 45% of Persian Gulf losses. Loong way to Asia out Suez Canal

Two days now Russian oil sanctioned again www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/min...

Orban lost an election Putin lost a Trump card @bbcstever.bsky.social

It is a genuine delight to see Marianna Budanova alive & well outdoors in the relative peace of an Easter semi-ceasefire euromaidanpress.com/2025/04/04/u...

Presumably he's wearing Trump's black Florsheim shoes too

This seems to me the best metaphor for crypto corrupto illiterates to try to understand what the latest Trump-Witkoff World Liberty Financial scandal is all about

While US has become psychotic state under Trump ("chaotic in its thinking, unpredictable in its actions & not reliably in touch with reality"), Russia under Putin has become a psychopathic state, with a remorseless antisocial driving principle that in a hostile & predatory world it must be more so.

If you import X, you become 😵

"Victims are told they are suspected of helping Ukraine (& face high treason charges) by perpetrators posing as FSB. In a country where disobedience to the regime’s orders is a criminal offense, the willingness to obey even seemingly crazed instructions is perhaps understandable."

Tired: NATO Wired: NUTU 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇹🇷🇬🇧 Agree @atpgeo.bsky.social it's Zelenskyy's best interview @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social @therestpolitics.bsky.social Kremlin seems anxious about a Fab Four real Coalition of the Willing, spewing out 3 different fake Norway news stories in 30 minutes yday ⬇️

Ya think? www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

"...giving up my citizenship was the right thing to do. I knew that no matter what I did, anyone I met might still think of me as Russian... That was fine. But not the Russian government. They could not call me Russian & that was victory enough for me" fascinating @radchenko.bsky.social mini memoir

He's mad they're cheating him out of his cut thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Is Melania putting her 👎 on the scale?

Actual ceasefire bar pretty low here

There's so much in this podcast that's fascinating but top for me is now I know that @christophersteele.bsky.social kept going on Trump & Russia. 👏🍿

Small drone attacks are killing more civilians around the world than ever before. I made a map about it:

How many analysts predicted Trump's concept of a peace plan would be to grab at least half of the Hormuz Strait ransom payments paid by other nations' ships in crypto that he could potentially personally benefit from? Seems screamingly obvious in hindsight, doesn't it? thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Not sure if Bibi got the taco memo tonight

Civilixation died tonight

Is he calling Trump from Putin's mouse hole on a secure communications device?

Ukrainian heroes come in all shapes, sizes and species

Iran announcing there will be kids forming human chains around the power plants tomorrow is asymmetric af, to update the president's adjective of choice.

photobomb goat ✌️📸 @nathanhoward.bsky.social

Trump got lucky getting two pilots out alive & no casualties or hostages. It hasn't sobered him up, he'll push it.

Shut your fuckin' mouth you crazy bastard

Time to take away his phone (today 📷 @nathanhoward.bsky.social returning to White House from his Virginia golf club)

The value we place on our soldiers' lives is both a strength & a vulnerability. Same for the opposite approach, Russia's meat waves.

Happy Fuckin' Easter

Our heartfelt patriotic mass celebration of no one left behind ethos accelerates this asymmetry.

These massively risky pilot rescues are courageous & honorable, but also another example of how asymmetric post WWs war has become. A pilot hostage would have been a more strategic factor than all the combat losses so far (at least short-term). www.reuters.com/world/middle...

When your air crew is downed somewhere in the country you've been bombing back into the Stone Ages

Is Russia the only country that doesn't hate us now?

Trump said the not-so-quiet part out loud about his Putin preference "NATO won't be there if we ever have the big one...If we ever have the big one, hopefully we won't but the relationship's very good with the big one - better than with NATO. We didn't have to go into Ukraine..."

April Fools on the Kremlin - its own app shut down April 1 not Telegram

Boy for an administration hair on fire about the Iranian Navy - the destruction/annihilation of which is the only common goal of the four listed by the White House & the State Department (which I wrote down) - it sure didn't help freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz