🧵1/ Garage Land: How Ukraine’s wartime defense tech startup scene is changing the future of warfare.

The war triggered a mobilization in garages and workshops across Ukraine, spawning cutting-edge innovations and hundreds of defense tech startups. 2/ For Americans Justin Zeefe and Deborah Fairlamb, the war was a wake-up call.

They met in early 2022 and launched Green Flag Ventures (GFV), a VC fund backing Ukraine’s wartime tech startups—and taking them global.

🧵1/ Ukraine’s Drone Wall is Ready for Russia’s Spring Offensive

As Russia launches its spring offensive, Ukrainian soldiers are confident their drones will give the invaders hell (including the soldiers on crutches). A new kind of warfare - low-cost, high-impact, a drone wall. 2/ Russia’s spring offensive has already begun, says Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Under pressure to show gains, the Kremlin is turning again to meatgrinder tactics - sacrificing troops for inches.

But this time, they’re running into a wall of drones.

A difficult question that needs to be addressed. What to do with the draft dodgers?

Ukraine Debates the Fate of the Men Who Fled

🧵 A thread on the quiet reckoning beginning to surface 1/ Tens of thousands of Ukrainian men left the country to avoid the draft. Many did so illegally. Meanwhile, soldiers at the front, some fighting for years without rotation, watch them on social media living comfortably abroad.

Putin isn’t just waging war on Ukraine’s future — he’s trying to erase its past. He wants to control the minds of the Ukrainian people and destroy the Ukrainian state. Western leaders must recognize his genocidal intent against Ukraine.

A thread🧵 1/ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was never just about toppling its government or conquering its territory. It was also a war on memory — an essentially colonial endeavor by Vladimir Putin to erase Ukraine’s identity and reimpose a Kremlin-approved version of history.

🚨 Putin failed to capture Ukraine. But his propaganda seized the White House.

Russia is winning the narrative war—using fakes that cost less than missiles and hit harder. Here's how disinfo reached the highest levels of U.S. power.
A thread🧵
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“Ukraine started the war.”
“Russia lost 60 million in WWII.”
“Zelensky has 4% support.”
These aren’t internet myths. They’ve been echoed from the White House. They’re Kremlin-crafted lies, part of a billion-dollar disinformation playbook.

Russia is targeting Ukraine’s Christian Protestants. Many are abandoning pacifist beliefs just to survive near the front, while Moscow spreads its state religion by force.

🧵 A thread about faith under fire.
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When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it didn’t just redraw borders and shatter homes – it fractured churches.

I asked a Ukrainian commander fighting in Kursk what he thought about Trump’s comments. Here is what he said:

“Honestly, I’m not thinking about politics right now and not reading anything. The bastards keep pushing.”

1/ “Yesterday, a KAB bomb landed about 10 meters from my dugout, three of my guys got wounded. It’s brutal here, getting harder and harder to complete the mission.”

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I visited Colombian soldiers from the 98th Territorial Defense Battalion Azov-Dnipro fighting on the Zaporizhzhia front. Here is what I learned about the Colombian soldiers fighting for Ukraine.

“‘Libertad o Muerte’ – Liberty or Death for Ukraine’s Colombian Volunteers”

🧵 1/ In the flatlands of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, soldiers from the 98th Territorial Defense Battalion Azov-Dnipro are training to storm Russian trenches. Shouts in Spanish mark them out as unusual: among their number are Colombians who have traveled to Ukraine to join the fight.

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I visited a mortar unit fighting on the Kharkiv front. Here is what I learned about what it's like for the mortar teams fighting on the front.

“Ukraine’s Frontline Units Fight the Russians, and More”

🧵 1/ “We mainly fire at the charging Russian infantry as they conduct assaults,” says Anatoliy, a commander of a mortar battery unit from Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Assault Brigade. His voice reflects the weariness of a unit that is battling against growing odds.

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I went on various night drone bombing missions with @YasniOchiUa. Here is what it would like to experience the fight for Chasiv Yar.

“Dragon Drones: Ukraine’s Night Hunters”

🧵 1/ As the sun sets, soldiers of Yasni Ochi, a drone unit of the 23rd Mechanized Brigade, prepare a night bombing mission on the eastern frontline city of Chasiv Yar. Their objective is to drop anti-tank mines and small bombs on Russian positions, including roads and places where soldiers were spotted during the day.

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I spoke with a tank crew fighting in the battle for Toretsk. Here is what they told me about how tank warfare.

“The Era of the Cautious Tank”

🧵 1/ In the forested areas surrounding the burning frontline town of Toretsk in Eastern Ukraine, the thunderous roar of artillery and the constant buzz of drones paint a vivid picture of the front in Donetsk Oblast. Here, soldiers from Ukraine’s 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade await orders for their T-64s, although their powerful machines now play a different role in a rapidly evolving war.

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On the frontlines of Eastern Ukraine, digital-savvy technicians are engaged in combat against the invader. A report about the drone unit @YasniOchiUa from the 23rd Mechanized Brigade fighting in Chasiv Yar
1/ 🧵 Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 37-year-old Heorhiy Volkov was a business and marketing professional and owner of a digital agency. Just days after it began, he contacted a former colleague who had used a drone to film a commercial for him, urging him to bring it to help patrol the streets of Dnipro.

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A thread on an aerial reconnaissance mission where I was embedded with the drone unit Ясні Очі from the 23rd Mechanized Brigade fighting in Chasiv Yar

🧵 1/ The unit gathers all their supplies and coordinates plans with HQ for the evening. We have to wait till sunset to go to our position on the front. Moving around during the day time is the most dangerous due to being easy prey for FPV drones.

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Since the beginning, the war for #Ukraine has been the fight of everyday people. In keeping with that tradition, #NAFO has taken up digital arms against the troll farms of Russia to combat Russia’s state-sponsored digital disinformation machine. frontsight.vc/posts/warrior-… 1/ Supporting Ukraine’s cyber defenses through decentralized democratic forces, such as the volunteer cyber warriors of the IT Army, has been key in tipping the scales of inequality in the digital warfare supporting the physical battlelines of Ukraine’s defense effort.