toomas ilves, ex-verif Profile picture
Feb 11 4 tweets 1 min read Read on X
If Russia wins in Ukraine, Europe will have 35 million refugees -- people who don't want to suffer the genocide we all know takes place in Russian occupied areas.

Europe is not ready for that. Its leaders worry instead about sending Tauruses and the cost of producing shells. 1/n
After Russia wins, Europe will have 3-4 years to get ready as Russia recovers. Perhaps less given they've ramped military production up to war levels.

Will anyone lead Europe in the next 4-5 years so we'll be ready?

The current crop has shown they are completely unfit.

2/n
Who the new leaders will be is up to European electorates.

Will European voters take seriously the threats we face or will they continue vacillating between being ostriches of sheep?

Those who have warned of what's coming have been ignored or sidelined. 3/n
The first opportunity for a shift from wimpy dithering and indecisiveness will be the European Parliamentary elections.

Let's see if European security becomes an issue.

If not, the "European project" will be as dead as the "American experiment" seems to be becoming. 4/fin.

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More from @IlvesToomas

Jan 17
To people who have no experience with spies:

I had a lot but two stand out: my number two in the RFE Estonian service and my immediate boss in its Research Dept

The latter was a shock when it came out he had worked for the Czech KGV, the StB, but knew as only my superior
1/n
The first. though, I had known for almost a decade and considered not only a colleague but also a friend and confidant. He told the best Soviet and anti-Soviet jokes and was a genuinely talented published writer.

One day in July 1991 the RFE director called me at 7 am.
2/n
"Come in now. Mesilane has defected and is giving a press conference in Moscow in 2 hours." RFE at the time was one of the few places in the West with Russian TV.

At the press conference in Moscow the man I had thought a friend,
3/n
Read 6 tweets
Aug 20, 2023
32 aastat tagasi, tollal *de jure* 73 aastavanune Eesti Vabariik ärkas, tärkas ja jätkas elu *de facto*.

Ent Eesti ei jätkanud sealt, kust meilt iseseisvus rööviti, vaid pidime 50 aastat füüsilisest, materiaalsest ja vaimsest taagast lahti ka saama. 1/n
Ja de novo looma ja ehitama midagi, millest eestlased olid pool sajandit unistanud ja selle nimel teinud rasket tööd. Ja mille nimel ka kohutavalt kannatanud.

Me ei saa aga minna ajas tagasi sellesse paljuski tagantjärel romantiseeritud idülli, milles me elasime 1939 a. ... 2/n
kui Stalin ja Hitler meid tsivilisatsioonist vägivaldselt rebisid, ja tirisid meid õudustesse, mille helgemaid hetki saaksime nimetada vaid labaseks matsluseks.

Vaadates igal hommikul arvutist üleöö aset leidnud õudusi Ukrainas, ma tean, et see meid endid 51 aastat painanud. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Jul 29, 2023
So at the bottom of the freak-out by the whining Russian loser in fencing was the lack of "respect" or "esteem" shown to her.

"уважение", in Russian is, in addition to envy or зависть, the driving need of Russian behavior, of the rapes, the torture, the looted toilets and 1/n
and washing machines, the stolen art and destroyed libraries.

It is a cultural cleavage, a chasm far greater than we in the West understand. It's what separates us from them,
it's what drives them nuts when they can't get visas to Europe.

-- failing to understand that it is 2/n
impossible to have any respect for murderers, or indeed for fencers who it turns out support genocide and the Russian army perpetrating these horrors.

So if you want to show how your complete lack of уважение, don't shake hands with them, don't talk to them, don't be in awe 3/n
Read 4 tweets
May 29, 2023
The missile attacks on civilians, the assassination threats, the promise to ethnically cleanse Ukraine, all on my twitter feed this AM:

Russians say these things because they believe in impunity, that they will never be held responsible, that Russia will never give them up. 1/
The problem is, they don't know that they had better hope for trials. The legal system ultimately is to prevent the беспредел of vigilante-ism.

When you don't have rule of law, even internationally, and justice is denied and people will take it in their own hands. 2/
Russians should fear this. Vigiliante-ism will hit Russians everywhere, indiscriminately. HUR will take care of the worst perpetrators of war crimes -- the torturers, the rapists, the missile firers, and not with jail terms.

The rest of "русский мир" will be despised, 3/
Read 5 tweets
Nov 23, 2022
With an impoverished, post-war Russia flooded with brutal returning, still armed mercenaries and other blatnoi thug-trash, the early 1990s will seem like Andy of Mayberry.

Who's nominally in charge won't matter, it will be anarchic chaos.Dig the moat. 1/2
foreignaffairs.com/russian-federa…
A "Marshall Plan" assumes someone in in charge to whom to offer a plan.

Russia OTOH will be 1990s Somalia, not a Germany under UK, FR and US military occupation -- in a country that already had a strong, albeit temporarily interrupted, centuries-old Rechtstaat tradition. 2/n
Somalia/Kadyrovia: top-to-bottom lawlessness, war-lordism, brigandry, a de-industrialised mankurt with no "state" left to keep order.

The social contract of security in exchange for the state's monopoly on use of violence will be dead.

Sirokin's "Day of the Oprichnik"

End.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 22, 2022
Some PR advice for Russian liberals: (a thread)

1. Stop being so self-absorbed. Don’t talk about a “Marshall Plan” for Russia when those who would pay for it read daily accounts of new atrocities in Ukraine

2. Don’t call Westerners Nazis when they do want Russians to travel 1/n
…to their countries. We’ve seen enough bad behavior, harassment of — and even violence — against Ukrainian women refugees and “Z”s spray painted on 1000 year old cathedrals to tolerate this.

3. Don’t threaten us with dire scenarios of what will happen to us if we don’t 2/n
help you financially. It’s called blackmail or extortion. No one likes being extorted.

4. Do show some responsibility and contrition for Russian crimes. “It wasn’t us” doesn’t work when we all know the #1 liberal called Georgians “rats” and justified the annexation of Crimea 3/n
Read 12 tweets

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