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Daractenus

@Daractenus

Nov 24

‼️In what might be catastrophic news for Romania, for Ukraine and Europe in general, in the first round of the Romanian Presidential Election, an almost completely unknown individual somehow managed to win some 16-18% of the votes (for now, still counting and still growing every minute) and might actually end up qualifying for round 2.

This man does not belong to any party (thus no party machinery to back him), no vast fortune to fund his campaign that we know of and has a face and name not even 1 in 50 Romanians would have recognized 1 month ago while his score tonight was not predicted by any pollster, even remotely.

As I'm writing this, probably every third Romanian just discovered, upon googling the guy, that he is openly pro-Russian, openly and unapologetically pro-Iron Guard (Romanian WW2 fascist movement), violently anti-NATO, anti-EU and an all round terrifying monster of a man (all views which he kept hidden during his "campaign").

I am absolutely convinced, as is everyone else here tonight, that this man is a Russian asset and his meteoric rise from 0% to God knows how much, could not be explained in any other way but by a massive and unprecedented Russian interference.

UPDATE: With some 50% of the votes counted, not only is he gonna make it into round two, but he seems to be heading towards a win in this first round.

Again, this is a man probably 9 out of 10 Romanians first heard about tonight.

UPDATE: As everyone is now looking into him, an insane amount of connections with the Russians are coming to light.

I don't believe for a second a TikTok campaign, as efficient that may be, can take you from near complete obscurity to 23% in 30 days. This is mass fraud.

Read 4 tweets

Daractenus

@Daractenus

Nov 18

Here's a neatly organised timeline of "major" Russian "red lines" we crossed, with Putin doing absolutely nothing about🧵

June 2022: Putin warns U.S. against sending Ukraine longer-range weapons, threatens Russia would strike targets in the West if they donated more advanced weaponry to Ukraine.

Mere days days later, the first HIMARS arrive in Ukraine. Russian threat goes unfulfilled.

April 2023: Putin warns U.S. and other Western nations would be considered a “party to the conflict” if it donated longer-range weapons to Ukraine.

Two months later, Britain becomes the first nation to supply Ukraine with long-range weapons. Russian threat goes unfulfilled.

Read 8 tweets

Daractenus

@Daractenus

Nov 14

Because most of Trump's nominations are somewhat unknown to most of my fellow European, I figured I could a thread with some short but I'd say pretty honest reviews.🧵

With "they're eating the cats, eating the dogs" as one of US's most pressing issues apparently, the stable Kristi Noem is an excellent choice for Homeland Security, one that stands to deliver a quick solution by shooting both the cats and the dogs. And likely the immigrants too.

Scoring a solid 10 on the Marjorie Taylor Green-o-meter for spotting "up to 30" Ukrainian bio-labs and having missed every single one of Assad's chemical weapon attacks, Tulsi Gabbard as head of National Intelligence is just the right level of whatever irony is called in Russian.

Read 7 tweets

Daractenus

@Daractenus

Nov 2

For anyone interested in the elections taking place in Moldova tomorrow, feel free to bookmark this thread.

Similar to how I did last round, I'll do my best to do an hourly or so update on it tomorrow (or whenever something of note comes up).

Per the "campaign" Russia started engaging in yesterday - ironically trying to portray Maia Sandu and Romania as the ones "buying votes" and attempting to steal the election - they seem to be setting the stage for "something" in the event of a Sandu win.

According to the Moldovan Police, in the last 24h - and still ongoing - a massive influx of people is coming into the country (30k so far, about triple the number you'd see on any other given day), most being Moldovan passport holders residing in Russia.

While the Russians appear to be using a myriad of routes to get them from Russia to Moldova, most of them are being flown to Istanbul and from there taken by buses to the Moldovan borders - all transportation being free and paid for by the Kremlin.

On a similar note, per Moldovan press, Transnistria also seems to have prepared to move several tens of thousands of people into Moldova "so they can vote" tomorrow.

While all these people are for sure being sent to Moldova to vote for the pro-Russian candidate, if Maia Sandu still manages to win, I'm not very convinced simply packing up and quietly going back to Russia is their plan B.

By 10AM, the turnout reached 10.4%, which is more than in the first round yet still somewhat below the 2020 presidential election (when Sandu won by a clear margin).

In diaspora, so far 30k people voted and long queues are reported in Moscow, Istanbul (pro-Russian votes, see post above) and Bucharest (pro-Sandu votes). In Transnistria, they're likely heading towards a voter turnout record (again see post above).

Because a very high voter turnout will somewhat mitigate the Russian interference in this hybrid war of an election, that would be the main thing to look and hope for at the moment (both inside Moldova and in the EU Moldovan diaspora).

Read 21 tweets

Daractenus

@Daractenus

Oct 20

As I've split my Russian cities "travel guide" into a myriad of different threads and posts, I've decided to finally gather them all in one place (mostly so I can have something to pin on my profile).

Welcome to "Posh Russian cities - The Definitive Edition" 🧵

While a romantic sunset, sunrise or the sun in general is not something you're likely to experience in Norilsk - a city that fields a beautiful bi-annual Biblical plague when the local river runs red with pollution, is one for sure bound to go straight to your heart. And lungs.

Having "Leave" as the most common answer to the "Things to do in..." question, Magnitogorsk's mix of local dishes is widely recommended as an excellent way to encourage hair loss, while a dip in the local river is equally advised to those looking to possibly acquire superpowers.

Read 13 tweets

Daractenus

@Daractenus

Oct 17

Having always been mildly curious about the topic, I decided to use my nonexistent financial and legal expertise to find out how much money Navalny's "anti-corruption foundation" makes and just what it is they spend it on - and it has been one extraordinary journey! 🧵

As a starting point, I figured I'd take a look at their official website - which while kind enough to list every payment method humanity ever managed to create as available to give them money - makes absolutely sure not to provide any kind of financial reports on that money (very much a standard when it comes to transparent NGOs and not-for-profit websites).

What the website does do, somewhere down below in a corner, with a font size possibly chosen out of a sincere desire to blind their inquisitive enemies, is mention a NY employer identification number (85-0774334).

The good news is that if one is sufficiently determined to navigate through the NY GOV website, you can use the EIN to finally dig up some financial statements.

The bad news is that Navalny's "anti-corruption foundation", fighting so very hard against the lack of institutional corruption and lack of transparency, last published any sort of financial info back in 2022, which, apart from being ironic - also looks solidly legal.

As per their last report, about 80% of their funds ($1.4 million out of approximately $1.8 million) were spent as "grant distributions", with every single cent of those "grants" being transferred to, as I am sure you all guessed it, an obscure Lithuanian NGO named POSTERUM.

Read 7 tweets

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