President Stubb: I’m not optimistic about a ceasefire or peace talks in Ukraine this year — maybe by February or March.
Until then, we must maximize pressure on Russia and force Putin to rethink his aim of denying Ukraine’s independence. 1/
Stubb: Ukraine needs two things: financial support, using €140-180B in frozen Russian assets as collateral to get through winter — and increased military pressure.
West must keep supplying weapons. With Putin, only the stick works, he won’t negotiate unless forced. 2/
Stubb: Sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft was the right move — it hits Russia’s oil sector and the machine funding the war.
Ukraine now needs maximum firepower, not just Tomahawks but anything that can strike Russia’s military and defense industry. 3/
Stubb: Peace mediation requires patience and realism. I’ve focused on building security guarantees for Ukraine, exploring how a ceasefire at the contact line could start, and defining parameters for future talks.
It’s a grind — but in diplomacy, patience matters. 4/
Stubb: Zelenskyy must clear this corruption case fast, and he has already begun. War leaves no space for corruption.
Russia exploits every scandal to weaken Ukraine. I want this cleaned up so we can keep building Europe’s and America’s defense of Ukraine. 5/
Stubb: Budapest meeting cancelled because Trump and his team saw that Russia isn’t interested in a ceasefire or peace.
They saw it first in Alaska, then in Trump’s call with Putin and again when Rubio and Lavrov spoke about the agenda for a meeting. 6/
Stubb: Russia won’t come to talks voluntarily. They’ve gained 1% of Ukraine in 1,000 days while losing 5-7,000 troops a week, over a 1M killed or wounded.
They’re nowhere near Kyiv and won’t get there. What could bring them to talks? Security guarantees, the economy and land. 7/
Stubb: Nuclear use is very unlikely — China and India already pushed Putin to drop early threats. My worry is key arms-control treaties are expiring while more states can access nuclear tech.
Major powers [U.S., Russia and China] must restart nuclear-control talks. 8/
Stubb: Be Finnish — calm and firm. Russia fights a hybrid war: pushing asylum seekers over our border, damaging undersea cables and violating our airspace with drones.
Each time, we acted fast and set up NATO’s Baltic and Eastern Sentry operations and the incidents stopped. 9X
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UK may move from sanctions to seizures — targeting Russia’s shadow fleet.
The Guardian: London is weighing the capture of a Russia-linked tanker, an escalatory step that could open a new front against Moscow as oil revenues fall. 1/
KSE Institute: Russia’s oil and gas revenues fell 24% in 2025, down to 22% of state income from 41% in 2022.
A maritime services ban plus tanker seizures would be very painful for the Kremlin. 2/
British defense sources confirm NATO discussions identified military options to seize “stateless” shadow fleet ships.
In Jan alone, 23 tankers using false flags transited the Channel or Baltic, many carrying Russian oil to China, India, Turkey. 3/
Jeffrey Epstein spent years trying to meet Putin, cultivated ties with Russian officials including an FSB academy grad.
Epstein once asked a Kremlin contact for help after claiming a Russian woman was blackmailing "powerful businessmen" in NYC — The WP. 1/
Putin’s name appears 1,000+ times in newly released DOJ files. He made repeated attempts from 2013-2018 to arrange a Putin meeting, often through former Norwegian PM Thorbjørn Jagland. No evidence shows it ever happened. 2/
Sergey Belyakov, a high-ranking FSB academy graduate and Russia's deputy economic development minister, maintained a close friendship with Epstein from 2014-2018. He invited Epstein to Russia's top investment forum multiple times. 3/
Brittney Shki-Giiziz, Canadian volunteer in Ukraine: My first day fighting was absolutely excellent. I destroyed a train station with a tank. Being at war was physically easier than the training the Canadian Army puts us through. It prepared me very well for war. 1/
Shki-Giiziz: The truth is that Russia is pushing. We are holding, but we are being pushed back constantly.
Our safe houses are pushed further back. We had positions in Myrnograd and Pokrovsk not so long ago. 2/
Shki-Giiziz: My first motivation for learning Ukrainian was to serve in a tank. Language was a requirement. I studied Ukrainian and the 25th Brigade gave me a chance. At first I just studied the commands. Now I’m conversational and can work freely in Ukrainian. 3/
A German wargame claims Russia could break NATO with just 15,000 troops — by exploiting hesitation.
Ben Hodges for Telegraph: A small Russian force could break NATO due to Western paralysis. The core fix is Ukraine. 1/
The scenario: Oct 2026. Russia stages a “humanitarian crisis” in Kaliningrad, moves into the Suwałki Corridor, seizes Marijampolė.
US stays out. Poland mobilises but hesitates. Germany dithers. Baltics get cut off. NATO credibility collapses — on paper. 2/
Hodges: Ukraine stopped a far stronger Russian army in 2022. Helping Ukraine defeat Russia is the strongest deterrent — it destroys the myth that Russia can win against NATO-level forces. 3/
Bloomberg: Russia is short nearly 10-11 mln workers and is now recruiting labor from India and Sri Lanka to keep its economy running as war and demographics drain the workforce. 1/
For decades, Russia relied on migrants from Central Asia. That model is breaking down as the Ukraine war, emigration, and aging push the country into its deepest labor crisis in years. 2/
Moscow estimates it will need 11 mln additional workers by 2030. Unemployment is about 2%, while one-quarter of the population is already retirement age. There is no domestic reserve left. 3/