IMO that is not an appropriate ask. UKRs are dying every day, not to speak of civilian suffering from LRSs, including the destruction of UKR energy infrastructure.

Hegseth is so far out of his depth he's at the bottom of the ocean. TBF, this is also true of his boss and many of his cabinet colleagues.

Much of the Soviet defense and heavy-machine building capacity was in Ukraine. Although it atrophied after the USSR collapsed, Putin wants it back. Perversely, he has now done more than anyone to modernize it, even as it is more and more clear he won’t get it.

“Total lack of public collective action.” Yep. Universities have tremendous economic impact in every part of this country. They should have banded together. And they’ve wasted two seasons of March Madness when they could have made the case for why they are important to society beyond basketball.

This & the cancellation of Title VI/FLAS funding for foreign language & area studies pose existential threats to the social sciences at every R1 university in the country. And it's been ~total 🦗🦗 from our university presidents/chancellors & a total lack of public collective action.

Recently, one of popular pro-Putin bloggers who for years pushed pure Kremlin narratives turned against Putin using no kind words. Did he go nuts or did his sponsor change? @faburkhardt.bsky.social gives an in depth analysis for the last 4 years of Remeslo’s TG posts ridl.io/from-z-blogg...

"Maxim says his commander welcomed new recruits by telling them he had buried 12 companies and they would be the 13th.. The next day he explained that survival was not a matter of luck, but of ability to pay." The fish rots from the head. Pedantic p.s. Altai is not in the "north-east" of Russia.

So good

Great, thought-provoking read. Putin of course gets a mention. See Sperling's Sex, Politics, & Putin for the whole story. (self-promo: I discuss "hypermasculinity" as part of the Code of Putinism)

Jacques Tilly, Germany’s best known maker of political carneval floats is on trial today in Moscow (he’s safe in Germany). These are some of his floats of the past years.

Putin spokesman Peskov: "As you know, President Putin is a firm believer that all disputes should be resolved exclusively through political-diplomatic means." The "as you know" is 😘🤌 (he was talking about Iran, in case you were wondering) t.me/dimsmirnov17...

Wow. I can almost imagine what hearing Lincoln at Gettysburg must have been like.

Trump was always likely to head in this direction because he thinks Putin is cool and associates Zelensky with his 1st impeachment. He already stopped direct US military and economic aid. The only surprising thing is that some people thought Trump would be better for Ukraine than Biden & Harris.

As someone who studies politicization of democratic militaries this statement on X is a five- alarm fire. It creates an undeniable permission structure for overt partisan behavior by mil. It's part of a concerted effort by civilian leaders to turn the U.S. military into a partisan aligned force.

Fitting that Trump’s address to the nation on the war is on April 1.

Amazing to live in a time when the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Adviser (same guy, but still) either don't know or pretend not to know the purpose of NATO.

#polisky the absolute decimation of the social sciences cc @professormusgrave.bsky.social @mcopelov.bsky.social

Russia is in some ways a big winner of the Iran war, but domestically Putin has had a bad couple of weeks. Good piece by Alexey Kovalev: "The Kremlin is no longer just losing control of the narrative; it is now dismantling the very infrastructure it used to build support."

In more than 1,000 schools in almost every region of Russia, schoolchildren during class lessons are making supplies and equipment for the war: protective clothing, camouflage nets, trench candles, medical supplies, etc. From Verstka (Ru): verstka.media/detskie-shve...

We shouldn't always listen to the generals. Civilian control of the military means that the civilians should always be in charge and make the final call.

By one of Russia's best investigative journalists, Roman Badanin. Well worth a read.

A day late but a couple photos from #NoKings NYC. People everywhere, including a few unexpected appearances.

This is nice and all but wouldn't it be cool if Syracuse University boosters did this to save foreign languages being axed (sorry, "sunsetted"), and it would be a lot cheaper too. (and I'm a women's and men's basketball season ticket holder)

Not an issue I follow but yikes: "The Caspian Sea is dying, with its water level now the lowest in the last 400 years and projected to fall by another foot every year for the rest of this century—leading to a tragedy far greater than the death of the Aral Sea in Central Asia several decades ago."

In more than 1,000 schools in almost every region of Russia, schoolchildren during class lessons are making supplies and equipment for the war: protective clothing, camouflage nets, trench candles, medical supplies, etc. From Verstka (Ru): verstka.media/detskie-shve...

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

Ukraine is hitting the Kirishi oil refinery near St Petersburg, which figures in stories about Putin’s activities in the early 1990s when he issued oil export licenses to Gennady Timchenko and the KiNex oil exporter. Timchenko became one of the richest men in Russia and remains close to Putin.

A Russian soldier today has four ways out: death, crippling injury, capture, or desertion. That's not a figure of speech. A captain deserted and took his entire division's personnel lists with him. Here's what they show: khodorkovsky.substack.com/p/how-putin-...

Good piece from @zygaro.bsky.social on how the war in Iran eased pressure on Putin at a time when signs were growing of domestic difficulties.

And this guy takes strategic advice from Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great so he’s somewhat of an expert on the subject.

Socializing this to academic stakeholders thinking about ROI

Imagine shutting down your entire fine arts program, your Russian program, your Modern Jewish studies programs and simultaneously setting up a Center for the Creator Economy, sweet baby Jesus

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

“Sunsetting”, “reimagining”… Don’t let hand-wavy bullshit language distract you. This is the elimination of fields of academic study because the admins are afraid of the weakest and most disorganized president in modern history. Do not forget who the cowards were. dailyorange.com/2026/03/suns...

Excellent (if sobering) thread on the upcoming Hungarian elections. I will continue to sacrifice chickens until well after April 12.

Happy #Caturday to our new kittens Wolff and Woodbine making their Bluesky debut

A reminder that in addition to being a former FBI Director Mueller was a combat-decorated USMC Vietnam veteran.

Interesting Kremlinological post by Tom about the Remeslo case. Perhaps I'm insufficiently cynical, but I think it's possible Remeslo was sincere. The content of the Remeslo message was too extreme to be an attempt to smoke out elite opponents IMO. But Tom provides a thorough account and argument.

Kate with the 🧾on Hegseth's flip flop on support for Ukraine.

"Political interference in university governance, curricular decisions, hiring practices, and research agendas has increasingly become a feature of contemporary US higher education.... federal actions escalated in 2025 to concrete interventions targeting the autonomy of universities."

It is also worth adding that almost nothing we provided to Ukraine is even relevant to this conflict. The only thing that would be is the PAC-3 and we gave a borderline negligible number of interceptors. We're not using GMLRs, Bradleys or 155mm rounds to fight Iran. This is completely made up.

I couldn't resist this (with apologies to @economist.com)

Aid to Ukraine from 2022-2026 was a rounding error. We used more in the first two weeks of the Iran war than we provided in the 4 years of aid to Ukraine.

The timing of the Trump administration's lifting of oil sanctions on Russia and potash Belarus is, of course, due to the economic crisis caused by the Iran war, but the underlying reason is the years-long desire by Trump and those around him to lift sanctions on Russia. 🧵

Russia has for more than 4 years been committing the crimes against humanity of the deportation, forcible transfer, and enforced disappearance of Ukrainian children. From last week's report of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. news.un.org/en/story/202...

"Given the disruption and outright destruction of oil deliveries from the Middle East via the Persian Gulf, there has been renewed speculation about China’s willingness to commit to the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline. This is unlikely."

Orban is cooked.

“They can’t really jail everyone for criticizing Putin,” he told the exiled news outlet Agentstvo. “That’s nonsense.” [Insert Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme Here]

Russia has for more than 4 years been committing the crimes against humanity of the deportation, forcible transfer, and enforced disappearance of Ukrainian children. From last week's report of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. news.un.org/en/story/202...

New V-Dem data release dropped yesterday. For the first time, V-Dem identifies Trump-era United States as an autocratization episode. Here are 3 of V-Dem's indices for the full scope of U.S. constitutional history. Description of these indices in alt text.