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.

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.

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.

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 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).

For the sake of better understanding the inner workings of the "mysterious Russian soul", I've compiled a long list of polls which, put together, make for a rather compelling image, one that I hope will dismiss the idea of the "silent majority of the good Russian people". 🧵 While apparently a lot of people in Africa still hold somewhat of a positive view of Russia, less then 1 in 10 Russians would even conceive having someone from Africa as a family member, neighbor, friend, coworker or all round go as far as to see them as a human being.

Truth is the possibility of war is incredibly far removed for the majority of Europeans (especially as one moves westwards)- and fair enough, that's kinda what human nature and about 80 years of peace tends to do to one.

Unfortunately, this also translates into a very real lack of public pressure for our governments to increase defense spending (which typically require some rather unpopular cuts into other budgets).

In the light of all the above and some illusory hopes of raising awareness, here's an incomplete list of the warnings made (just within the last 10 months or so) by what I hope we can all agree are the most informed and competent people in Europe to assess the likelihood of a war with Russia: Gen. VLAD, Chief of the General Staff of the Romanian Army (May, 2024):

"I'm convinced that Putin will escalate the war in the near future. (...) the population of Romania, like the entire population of Europe, must adopt appropriate measures to be prepared for war."

I've noticed almost every post unfavorable to Viktor Orban gets bombarded by comments praising his "excellent governance" and the "great things he's done for Hungary" (usually coming from subject matter experts that can't actually point Hungary on a map).

So I figure we should take a lot at the great things he's done for Hungary, and in the spirit of me trying to get as many insults as possible from pro-Orban Hungarian ultra-nationalists, I'll do it by comparing Hungary to quite possible their favorite neighbor and a country often traditionally seen as having one of EU's most corrupt and incompetent political elites (a point I do not dispute): Romania. Despite having about half of Romania's population, in 2003 (shortly after Orban's first term), Hungary had a GDP of $85 bil. while Romania's GDP was $57 bil.

Today, after too many Orban years to count, Hungary's GDP is about $220 billion, while Romania's stands at $370 bil.

Since my travel guide to Russia's wonderful working class cities turned so popular, I figured it would only be fair to take you on a journey through the humble dwellings some of the pro-war Russian elites bought (and lived in) throughout the collapsing decadent West. A fervent supporter of the war he won't die in, Andrei Bokarev is a great Russian patriot which - like all other great Russian patriots - used to drown his sorrows as far away from Russia as possible and dream of Chelyabinsk from his modest $100 million Saint-Tropes cottage.

During the recent Vietnam visit, given Russia's vast experience on the topic, Putin graciously offered to assist Vietnam in building "smart cities" and urban infrastructure.

Inspired by it, I made a list of posh Russian cities you should consider for your next travel abroad.🧵 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, is one for sure bound to go straight to your heart (and likely lungs).

Meet Belorussian "opposition news agency" NEXTA, possibly the thing community notes were invented for and one proudly standing as the 95th most community noted account on Twitter.

They got noted so much that I had to actually make a video about it on top of the thread.. Sometimes, they are so "anti-Putin" and "anti-war" that they get community noted for spreading very obvious Russian propaganda (typically aimed at sowing discord between Ukrainians and Romanians/Poles).

Because I love vatnik tears as much as the next man, I decided to see how your average, salt of the Earth, genocidal Russian feels about the US aid.

I've summarized and sampled the main vibes on the main Russian Telegram channels, for your viewing pleasure. Some of them managed to stay joyfully optimistic and show no hard feelings.

A Vatnik's Guide to the Galaxy

In May 2023, having had enough of the decadent LGBTQ EU, a Slovak man - whom I shall name Flipper for no particular reason, decided to deal a severe blow to the Western world by moving to the promised land - Russia.

Sometimes, all it takes for a vatnik to have a change of heart is as little as walking across 5 borders, swimming across a river into Russia, running into FSB, spending some time in the Russian penal system, and getting extradited. This will be a grand epic of FAFO and redemption.

Flipper is a trained musician skilled in playing the cello and piano and composing operas and symphonies, a talent he put to good use by creating timeless pieces of art such as "Long Live Russia" and several "Odes to Putin".

Possibly unaware that Russia has an embassy in Slovakia and is quite happy to legally welcome dumbasses such as him, Flipper made his way across Europe and eventually reached Estonia, where he figured swimming across the Narva River is his best bet.

Shortly after stepping foot on Russian territory, hypothermic but excited, he attempted to impress the FSB agents who picked him up by showing them his pro-Russian songs. Presumably unimpressed, they proceeded to beat him up. confiscate his phone, accuse him of being a spy, and quickly throw him in jail.

"They arrested me and put me in a cell with 60 people. The toilet was a hole in the ground, like an open sewer. I used to put cotton wool in my ears so that the bugs wouldn't get in, we even had rats in some of the cells and the prison authorities knew very well about it and never did anything about it" he would write in his prison diary, with much surprise.

Fortunately, Flipper would only spend 2 months in Russia as the Slovakian diplomacy was able to bring their dumb prodigal son back home.

Reflecting on his time in the Russian prison, he expressed his empathy for Ukrainian prisoners, believing that they must suffer greatly. He criticized the treatment they receive, describing it as barbaric. You can find the first episode of the "Vatnik Adventure Time" series here:

https://x.com/Daractenus/status/1773011692068188221?s=20

A Tale of Two Vatniks

Shortly after the war began, two regular everyday normal vatniks from Romania felt the whole war thing is a little bit suspicious.

Having had enough of the lying Western media, they figured seeing is believing. They packed up, got their passports in order, and off they left their village for Kyiv, only a short 8h drive away.

To be fair to them, these are not your typical pure evil vatniks, one of them stepped up and volunteered to help Ukrainian refugees from day one of the conflict he didn't believe was ongoing. Talking to the refugees apparently did nothing to shake his confidence that the war is "fake news".

After getting past some 40 checkpoints, and seeing village after devastated village, having been almost hit by Russian rockets several times and run over by a tank, our two dumb heroes will eventually make it all the way to Kyiv. They quickly grabbed a coffee and demanded to speak to Zelensky to sort out the whole war thing.

They will end up getting stuck in Ukraine for 4 days, mostly having to sleep in their car, scared to bits by the constant air sirens, and unable to find food or shelter.

At one point, they ended up playing the role of war reporter for one of the main Romanian news channels for about 5 minutes.

They will eventually make it all the way back to their village in Romania.

"Many times I sat and thought why did I come here? It really is war" will be their last and final statement on the matter. To anyone wondering, yes, this is a very real story. And yes, it's the guys in the picture.