Thread by @mhmck

Russia is at war with Ukraine. A tactic of Russia’s invasion, especially in Luhansk and Donetsk in 2014, was to send mobs to seize public buildings. The mobs were indoctrinated by TV and Internet disinformation, seeded with Russian agents.

This is how Trump attacked the Capitol.

Over 74 million Americans voted for a Russian asset, Trump. They have been indoctrinated to believe Democrats are a greater threat to the U.S. than aggressor Russia. American democracy is as unstable after 4 years of Trump as Ukrainian democracy was after 4 years of Yanukovych.

Most Americans don't know and don't care about how a mob was organized to seize the Security Service of Ukraine building in Luhansk or the Donetsk Regional State Administration Building. But they should. This tactic of Russia's global war against democracy has come to the USA.

#PutinAtWar is not a secret war, whether it's using Yanukovych in Ukraine or Trump in the USA. "Russia if you're listening…" is what Trump said in 2016, inviting Russia to attack American democratic institutions. Trump praised and encouraged the insurrectionists last week.

It is the nature of Russian imperialist warfare to attack weakness. Russia attacked the United State's weak election institutions in 2016. Weak national security allowed the insurrectionists to seize the Capitol. Weak news media allows Russian disinformation to spread unchecked.

Paul Manafort was Putin's grey cardinal to handle Yanukovych before reassignment to Trump. Manafort helped Yanukovych organize a mob that threw Molotov cocktails at U.S. Marines in 2006 in the south of Ukraine. Trump broke Manafort out of jail to keep the channel to Russia open.

Russian active measures work by making existing problems worse. Russia didn't make Trump an imbecile, a sociopath and a loser: he was that all along. But the Russians were easily able to turn Trump traitor because of his failings, and make him the stooge for their war in the USA.

I picked up on Trump-for-President as a Russian active measure in 2015. Trump spouted nonsense about Crimea, saying things he knew nothing about but was directed to say. News media don't report #RussiaInvadedUkraine but amplify Kremlin disinfo about it.

https://twitter.com/mhmck/status/627463114649432065?s=20

Putin has no master plan for world domination. He's too limited for that. Putin is a KGB sabotage & disruption agent. He'll exploit weakness to gain a tactical advantage, even if it makes no strategic sense.

By sowing chaos, Putin hopes to annihilate Ukraine and weaken the USA.

Russia is the mafia that captured a state. Trump has been valuable to the Putin-Kremlin crime syndicate as a money launderer. The Donetsk gangster Yanukovych was valuable to the Russians because of the Yanukovych Clan kleptocracy he set up in Ukraine, with Manafort's help.

Russia is a regime of state terrorism and a state sponsor of terrorism. The crimes against humanity of the RU-occupation regime in Crimea & Donbas have been horrendous, especially those committed by the so-called "DPR" & "LPR" terror groups. We ignore this and Putin gets a pass.

Elite capture makes Russia's hybrid warfare against democracies work. In Ukraine, Russia captured the oligarchs, the Moscow Patriarchate church and most of the security apparatus. In the USA, Russia captured the Republican Party, evangelicals, the NRA, Fox News and Facebook.

When #RussiaInvadedUkraine the Putin-Yanukovych regime directed mobs to capture public buildings in Simferopol, Odesa, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhia and other cities.

The Putin-Trump regime organizes mobs to attack US public institutions from this experience.

After Yanukovych ordered the Maidan Massacre, it was crucial for Ukrainian democracy to throw him out right away and not wait for the next election.

The same thing is true for American democracy after Trump directed the Capitol attack. Get him out now. Don't wait for January 20.

Where Ukrainians actively defended their democracy, Russia's invasion failed. I was an election observer in Ukraine on 25 May 2014. Samooborona (self-defence) formations protected the polling station I was at while the count was underway, defending it from anti-democracy forces.

Putin-Trump regime forces threaten to strike in all 50 states in the days leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden. Don't count on "the authorities" to protect American democratic institutions. They failed you on January 6th. Only an active citizenry can save democracy.

When Russia falsified the 2016 U.S. election, I urged Americans to defend democracy like Ukrainians did in the Revolution of Dignity.

Trump is now staging an insurrection. I urge Americans to fight the organized mobs like Ukrainians did in cities Russia did not end up invading.

Learn from Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. Study how Ukrainians defended their democracy from Russia's invasion – an ongoing "hybrid war" that began with organized mobs attacking public buildings. Ukrainians succeeded in most of their cities but were overcome in Crimea & Donbas.