Nick Schifrin Profile picture
Jul 22, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read Read on X
NEW from Senior U.S. Defense Official on the war in #Ukraine:

Russia has committed nearly 85% of its military to the war in Ukraine… It has removed military coverage from other areas on their border and around the world.
Russia is presently launching tens of thousands artillery rounds per day. “They can’t keep it up forever,” the official said. “They have expended a lot of their smarter munitions... Their capabilities are getting dumber.”
Official adds fight for Donetsk will “likely last through the summer,” with Russia achieving slow gains at high cost.

Official says Russia is “using rolling barrages,” but Russia still has not figured out how to use combined arms effectively.
Official says with the help of HIMARS, Ukraine has taken out more than a hundred “high-value” targets, attacking Russian command posts, ammunition depots, air-defense sites, radar and communications nodes, and long-range artillery positions.
Russia is taking hundreds of casualties a day. Among Russia’s military fatalities have been “thousands” of lieutenants and captains, “hundreds” of colonels, and “many” generals. “The chain of command is still struggling," the official said.

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More from @nickschifrin

Mar 15
For 80 years, the United States government has believed government funded information distributed to people whose governments try to stifle that information--or punish those who obtain it--has been in the national interest.

This began with @VOA, which beamed its first broadcast into the Soviet Union in 1942. It expanded with @RFERL in the 1950s, each of which were initially run by CIA. The goal: send facts over the Iron Curtain to try and win the Cold War.

In the 1980s, the geography expanded: Radio Marti (today the Office of Cuba Broadcasting) reached into Communist Cuba, and @RadioFreeAsia began in the 1990s to reach Asian countries with poor media environments. After 9/11, it expanded to Arabic language Middle East Broadcasting Network, which includes @alhurranews.

And when the information started being blocked by government suppression technology, the US government created the @OpenTechFund, which funded software that allowed dissidents from Iran to China to Venezuela to communicate (@signalapp) and get around firewalls, and Frontline Media Fund, a brand-new incubator designed to create new content distribution, especially in Mandarin

That effort is beginning to end today.
All staff employees of @VOA and OCB (federal networks) have been placed on leave. Which means, effectively, they will cease to operate.
Separately, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Radio Free Asia; Middle East Broadcasting Networks; Open Technology Fund; and Frontline Media Fund--"grantees" --all had their federal funding ended.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 4, 2024
BREAKING: Chinese hackers known as Salt Typhoon compromised at least 8 telecommunications companies, deputy national security advisor @AnneNeuberger announced on a call with reporters, and “we do not believe any have fully removed the Chinese from their networks... Until they address their gaps, the Chinese will maintain their access.”
As the FBI has detailed, there are three baskets of victims: a wide-swath of Americans whose phone metadata was stolen; a very small group of individuals whose audio calls and text messages were specifically targeted and successfully intercepted (and all of whom have been notified); and the portal that law enforcement uses to submit court orders to telecommunications internet service providers.
A senior administration official would not say how many Americans’ metadata was stolen, but acknowledged it was “a large number of individuals,” although “not every cell phone in the country.”
Read 5 tweets
Nov 18, 2024
Highlights of our @newshour interview with @JakeSullivan46:

Q: Two US officials confirm the administration gave Ukraine authorization to use ATACMS in Russia. Why?

A: "We don't have anything to announce or confirm on that today. So those remain unconfirmed reports. One thing I would point out, though, for context, is that Russia has just engaged in a massive escalation in this war. They have brought in a foreign army, North Korea, North Korean troops to the front lines of the battle. And that represents a sea change in the nature of this conflict."
Q: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said if there were official confirmation, it would mean direct involvement of the US in the war--

A: "If the U.S. were to authorize the use of any weapon system, including this weapon system, it wouldn't mean direct U.S. participation in the war. It would mean a continuation of the policy we've had since the war began, which is that we supply the means to Ukraine to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they fight the war."
Q: In and around Kursk, there are tens of thousands of troops massing to try and retake territory seized by Ukraine. There are Russian command and control sites. There are air defense and rocket launchers. Are those good ATACMS targets?

A: "I will obviously defer to the Ukrainians about how they choose to prosecute the war... From our perspective right now, the major escalation that we've seen is not about a particular geography or about a particular part of the front. It's about the fact that Russia has gone to another country from another part of the world... That is a change, a significant change, a change that, in fact, we warned the Russians about before they did it and said if they did it, we would respond. And of course we will respond."
Read 13 tweets
Nov 8, 2024
BREAKING from @TheJusticeDept: Attorney General Merrick Garland: “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”
From the complaint:
"According to SHAKERI, in approximately mid-to-late September 2024, IRGC Official-I asked SHAKERI to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump ("Victim-4" herein) ...
"According to SHAKERI, during his meeting with IRGC Official-I on or about October 7, 2024, IRGC Official-I directed SHAKERI to provide a plan within seven days to kill Victim-4. If SHAKERI was unable to put forth a plan within that timeframe, IRGC Official-I continued, the IRGC would pause its plan to kill Victim-4 until after the U.S. Presidential elections, because IRGC Official-I assessed that Victim-4 would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate Victim-4."
Read 4 tweets
Aug 16, 2024
NEW: Senior Administration official briefing reporters says an Iranian strike on Israel could bring "cataclysmic consequences":

"A major military attack--there's nothing that has happened that would justify such an act. We are prepared to counter, and defend Israel, should that come. But we would also encourage the Iranians--and I know many are--not to move down that road, because the consequences could be quite cataclysmic, particularly, for Iran."
On ceasefire talks, the official expressed guarded optimism that a deal can be made next week: "This process... is now in the end game"; “A deal that is ready to be closed"; “The package is basically there.”
Official engaged on the main gaps:
- On Israel's control of the Philadelphi corridor: "That issue is moving the right way."
- On screening of Palestinian movement from south to north: "If anyone is carrying arms from south to north, that would be a violation."
- Working groups will engage on the lists of which Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners will be released, and in what sequence
"What is on the table now basically bridges every gap."
Read 5 tweets
Jun 18, 2024
From our @JakeSullivan46 interview:
US agreement with Ukraine allows Ukraine to fire US weapons into Russia across from Sumy:
"It extends to anywhere that Russian forces are coming across the border from the Russian side to the Ukrainian side to try to take additional Ukrainian territory... That's happened in Kharkiv. We have seen initial indications that Russia has made exploratory moves across in Sumy. And so it would apply there as well."
F-16s will be based inside Ukraine:
"The plan is to put the F-16s in Ukraine. And the Bilateral Security Agreement that @POTUS and @ZelenskyyUa signed reinforced this point, that we want to help Ukraine have this capability. It should be a capability based in Ukraine."
Why make a 10-year Bilateral Security Agreement commitment that you don't know whether the next President will keep?
"In life in general and in democracy in particular, there are never any absolute lock, stock guarantees. Things can change, leaders can change, situations can change. All @POTUS can do is set a course and a vision for what is in the United States' national security interest, what is in the interest of the transatlantic alliance, and what is in the interest of our partnership with Ukraine. And that type of approach has historically served America well. And President Biden is going to stick with that approach for as long as he is president of the United States, which he, of course, expects to be for another 4 years."
Read 8 tweets

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