In April 2016, I broke the story of Trump and Putin, using Russian open sources. Afterwards, I heard vague intimations that something was awry in the FBI in New York, specifically counter-intelligence and cyber. We now have a suggestion as to why. 0/20
Credit where due. Biden warned of the Russian invasion. He reacted wisely and flexibly. And now he has gone to Kyiv to give hope. We haven’t had a statesman like this in a long time.
Ukrainian decathlete Volodymyr Androshchuk will not be representing his country at the Paris Olympics because he was just killed by the Russian armed forces. In other news, the IOC announces that Russian athletes are welcome in Paris.
I have been hearing the idea from some Republicans that Ukrainian resistance comes at a cost to Americans. Nothing could be more wrong. Ukrainian resistance provides extraordinary security benefits to Americans. 1/
All of you who are saying that we have to give in to nuclear blackmail are making nuclear war more likely. Please stop. When you give in to it, you empower dictators to do it again, encourage worldwide nuclear proliferation, and make nuclear war much, much more likely.
Invading a country, killing the parents, and taking the children for assimilation: that is clearly genocide, according to Article 2 Section E of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
When Putin says that there is no Ukrainian nation and no Ukrainian state, he means that he intends to destroy the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state. Everyone gets that, right?
#Ukraine
#UkraineRussiaWar
#UkraineUnderAttack
0/10 The Nova Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, controlled by Russia, has been destroyed. This brings humanitarian, ecological, and economic disaster to Ukrainians. Here are some guidelines for writing about this catastrophe.
To consider regarding nuclear blackmail: when you give in to it, you empower dictators to do it again, encourage worldwide nuclear proliferation, and make nuclear war much, much more likely.
Elon Musk seems to be censoring Ukrainians–denying them communications in parts of their own country–because they are defending themselves from a Russian regime that routinely imprisons people for speech. I guess his 'free speech absolutism' means the opposite of what I thought
The more we learn, the less this looks like a coup bound to fail, and the more it looks like plain luck that all of our legislators and our vice-president were not murdered.
That Trump will be tried for his coup attempt is not a violation of his rights. It is a fulfillment of his rights. It is the grace of the American republic. In other systems, when your coup attempt fails, what follows is not a trial.
From Ukrainian friends: “Editors and journalists: please don’t write about the ‘conflict in Ukraine.’ Write about the ‘Russian invasion of Ukraine’ or the ‘war in Ukraine.’”
#UkraineInvasion
#UkraineWar
#Ukraine
0/50 Why we do think that Mr. Trump owes a debt to Mr. Putin? Here are fifty reasons. All of the facts are a matter of public record, and all of the sources can be found in my book The Road to Unfreedom.
#RoadToUnfreedom
The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a US citizen is above the law – a proposition that, if affirmed, would destroy the moral, legal, and political foundations of the Court itself.
Supporting Ukraine is a once-in-a-generation chance to make the world safer. Ending that support is recklessness for which we will suffer in all the conflicts that the Ukrainians are preventing or making less likely. Let us help those who help us.
When Trump came to the White House, he whined that everything was a wreck, though it wasn’t. When Biden arrived at the White House, everything was a wreck, but he hasn’t complained at all. He’s just put things in order.
Right after the McGonigal story broke, Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee. Schiff is expert on Russian influence operations. It exhibits carelessness about national security to exclude him. It is downright suspicious to exclude him now. 16/20
Cutting off Ukraine aid makes America unreliable, weakens the cause of democracy, threatens the international legal order, encourages tyrants around the world, and hastens Chinese aggression.
The Ukrainian army is undertaking a stunningly intelligent counteroffensive, and the Ukrainian president helps me with my book about the philosophy of freedom.
1/11. Putin absurdly claims he has to invade Ukraine to protect Russian-speakers. Russian speakers in Ukraine are far more free than Russian speakers in Russia.
Russia is planning to starve Asians and Africans in order to win its war in Europe. This is a new level of colonialism, and the latest chapter of hunger politics. 16/16
The McGonigal question goes even beyond these issues. He had authority in the most sensitive possible investigations within U.S. intelligence. Sorting this out will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty. 20/20
Pollsters: please ask no more questions about the "situation in Ukraine" or the "crisis in Ukraine." Please ask about "the Russian invasion of Ukraine" or "Russia's war on Ukraine." That is an actual event on which people have views.
10/10. Politicians who do not tell the simple truth perpetuate the Big Lie, further an alternative reality, support conspiracy theories, weaken democracy, and foment violence far worse than that of January 6, 2021.
9/20. What Donald Trump is attempting to do has a name: coup d'état. Poorly organized though it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail.
Today was the anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. The Second World War began with a Nazi-Soviet alliance. It is illegal to say so in Russia. In Germany, where people are free to reflect upon this, it would not be a bad idea to do so.
The person who led the relevant section, Charles McGonigal, has just been charged with taking money from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Follow this thread to see just how this connects to the victory of Trump, the Russian war in Ukraine, and U.S. national security. 1/20
When an oligarch says "free speech," he means "my power to shut you up." When an oligarch says "free speech absolutism," he means "my absolute power to shut you up."
The Russian influence operation to get Trump elected was real. It serves no one to pretend otherwise. We are still learning about it. Denying that it happened makes the United States vulnerable to ongoing Russian operations. 18/20
I remember a certain frivolity from 2016. Trump was a curiosity. Russia was irrelevant. Nothing to take seriously. Then Trump was elected, blocked weapon sales to Ukraine, and tried to stage a coup. Now Ukrainians are dying every day in the defining conflict of our time. 19/20
Because Russia has destroyed hundreds of thousands of tons of Ukrainian grain, people throughout Africa and Asia will be priced out of grain markets and starve. In this sense, and from the beginning, Russia's war in Ukraine was a war against the world.
9/10. There is a cure for the Big Lie. Our elected representatives should tell the truth, without dissimulation, about the results of the 2020 election.
Ending the war means thinking more about the Ukrainian people and their future, and and worrying less about problems that Putin does not in fact have. 17/17
Looking at all of this from a great distance, of course, but wouldn’t the best economic, trade, and financial policy for Great Britain just now be to join the European Union...?
Ukrainian celebrities are dying at the front. American celebrities, please use your platforms to make it clear that Russian attacks on civilians are criminal.
#Ukraine
#UkraineUnderAttack
#UkraineRussiaWar
1/8. Russia has a history of aiming for quick and decisive strikes against Ukraine, failing, then revealing the aims of the operation in media prepared on the assumption of success.
Speaking of paying our share… If the US gave as much/GDP to Ukraine as does Denmark or Slovakia, Ukraine would win easily. If we gave as much/GDP to Ukraine as Estonia does, Ukraine would likely have won long ago. Ukrainian victory is what matters and we are the slackers.
As Ukraine re-establishes control over de-occupied territories, authorities once again have to chronicle Russian atrocities: torture facilities (everywhere), mass graves (Izyum), the absence of men (Horlivka). Russia’s war was genocidal in conception and is genocidal in practice.
An explosion on the Kerch Bridge, which connected the Russian mainland to Crimea, cripples Russian logistics and dissolves the major symbol of Putin’s power.
Ukraine is the only country in the world facing ballistic missile attacks. It can be defended by Patriot systems unused or in storage elsewhere. This needs to happen now.
Last night Russia launched more than 40 drones and 40 missiles into Ukraine. Kharkiv’s critical infrastructure alone was struck by 10 missiles, and other cities including Lviv and Zaporizhzhia were impacted.
The situation in Ukraine is dire; there is not a moment to lose.
So the Russian officer (Girkin) who started the Donbas war in 2014 is in jail, the only Russian general to carry out a successful maneuver in 2022 (Surovikin) has been relieved of duty, and the only Russian commander to take a city in 2023 (Prigozhin) has been murdered.
Russia never went through the procedure of joining the UN, and yet it is about to chair its Security Council, even as it fights a war of aggression and commits atrocities. This should be stopped.
Somehow, despite all the evidence of the last year, despite Ukraine taking back most of its territory, despite victories at Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, much of the American media has fallen back into the default that Ukraine can't do much against Russia. Very odd.
People seem puzzled as to why Trump kept the documents. That’s easy. To feel important. To pretend to be the president. And to have something to sell when the other scams failed.
A sign of Russian colonialism is that politicians and propagandists really did not understand that people in other countries are allowed to defend themselves when Russia invades.
In April 2016, I broke the story of Trump and Putin, using Russian open sources. Afterwards, I heard vague intimations that something was awry in the FBI in New York, specifically counter-intelligence and cyber. We now have a suggestion as to why. 0/20
Please help me protect life in Ukraine. Russia has targeted Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. This means the water supplies and energy supplies that people need to stay alive, especially throughout the winter. Last winter Russia tried to freeze the Ukrainians. 1/
7/10. A Big Lie can never be told just by one person. Trump is the originator of this Big Lie, but it could never have flourished without his allies on Capitol Hill.
"A group of Russian nationals were able to donate to newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson's campaign in 2018 by funneling the money through a U.S. company." – Ewan Palmer, Newsweek
If it was once your fate to claim that Russia had to invade Ukraine because of NATO or Nazis, it now falls to you to explain that Russia did so because of Satan.
"Everything Musk thought he was making better, he made worse. Since then, Musk has doubled down, spreading the very Russian propaganda that made him a dupe, and moving closer to a common fascist position with Putin."
Trump & Yanukovych were similar figures: interested in money, & in power to make or shield money. And therefore vulnerable partners for Putin. They also shared a political advisor: Paul Manafort. He worked for Yanukovych from 2005-2015, taking over Trump's campaign in 2016. 3/20
Please help me protect life in Ukraine. Russia has targeted Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. This means the water supplies and energy supplies that people need to stay alive, especially throughout the winter. Last winter Russia tried to freeze the Ukrainians. 1/
3. Citing Russian claims next to Ukrainian claims is unfair to the Ukrainians. What Russian spokespersons have said has almost always been untrue, whereas what Ukrainian spokespersons have said has largely been reliable. The juxtaposition suggests a false equality.
Russia is murdering Ukrainian civilians on a large scale with horrifying weapons. Getting the Ukrainians air defense, tanks, and long-range missiles is the only way to halt this terrorism and end this war.
The reason I was thinking about Trump & Putin in 2016 was a pattern. Russia had sought to control Ukraine, using social media, money, & a pliable head of state. Russia backed Trump the way that it had backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the hopes of soft control 2/20
Back in June 2016, Kevin McCarthy expressed his suspicion that Donald Trump was under Putin's influence. He and other Republican members concluded that the risk of an embarrassment to their party was more important than American security.
#RoadToUnfreedom
, p. 255. 17/20
A year and a half ago, Russia undertook a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since that time, Ukraine has taken back more than half of the territory then lost. If we don't let them down, the Ukrainians will win this war, and bring us a more secure world.
It helps to know history. It gives you a sense of dignity and confidence amidst the propaganda of war and genocide. Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski demonstrates this here at the UN.
Minister
@MSZ_RP
@sikorskiradek
podczas wczorajszego wystąpienia w
#ONZ
o prezentacji rosyjskiego ambasadora: Kijów nie jest klientem Zachodu. Kijów walczy o niezależność, a Ukraina ma demokratycznie wybrany rząd i nie jest zbrodniczym reżimem. To Rosja próbowała eksterminować…