1-15

Velina makes a relevant point, namely that Polish President Duda's private meeting with Donald Trump likely had an important positive impact for what followed.

Note that the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda also believes that this was the case (link follows).

https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1782656041785712739

2-15

Trump met with Duda on Thursday 18 April and stated to journalists that "we're behind Poland all the way".

reuters.com/world/trump-sa…

1-8

We need to talk about another facet of American and America-focused propaganda: the weaponisation of the issue of drug addiction.

I believe this is a major blind spot in American discourse, with multiple core elements that are misunderstood 🧵

2-8

First, it is traditional anti-American propaganda, dating back to the days of the Soviet Union, to suggest to American voters a trade-off between money spent at home to alleviate social misery, notably homelessness, and money spent abroad, notably for military purposes.

1-15

Very important press conf. at NATO with 3 Prime Ministers: Netherlands, Denmark, Czechia.

DNK PM Frederiksen: "[all of us] are we not better off sending a few of our own AD systems to Ukraine at a time where they, not we, are struggling daily..."

2-15

"...to fight off never ending Russian attacks? We know we have systems in Europe. Some of them need now to be delivered into Ukraine. And I think the answer to this question is of course a yes."

1-11

"I mean it makes sense to me that we should destroy'em" ✔️

The right conclusion regarding Russia's refineries from U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (Republican, Georgia).

As for Celeste Wallander's legal reasoning, I believe it is incorrect in light of previous U.S. actions 🧵 2-11

Wallander stresses the civilian nature of the refineries and implies that civ. infra should not be hit.
Here, Scott's reaction missed the mark: for legal scholars, an enemy's IHL violations don't justify responding with IHL violations (and rightly so).

"Trump is already partially in power and stabbing Ukraine in the back". My view of what Trump and his political associates are effectively doing, featured in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet [in Norwegian].

1-4

dagbladet.no/nyheter/frykte… Translated extract:
"This blockage has been going on in full for months, which is a very long time in a high-intensity war like we have in Ukraine. I mean, it's pretty sick."

2-4

The way America's MAGA-Moscow movement cultivates the idea of abandoning Europe follows a systematic pattern 🧵

1: focus ALL of the criticism of Europe on its low defence spending, and make a generalisation out of it.

1-9 This means deliberately overlooking cases like Poland & Baltic states; not recognising recent defence spending increases by most Europeans; mentally dropping the UK from the picture; and also not acknowledging that Poland spends MORE than the U.S. on defence as a % of GDP.

2-9

1-13

A dark scenario ahead: Russia and China would coordinate military aggression in their respective regions in the time window of the U.S. election in November.

I can't speak to the accuracy or likelihood of this.
But it would be foolish not to have a contingency plan.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPR/status/1773983654961680488

2-13

While some may wish to know what the sources are, how reliable, whether this is based on concrete intelligence or merely just a speculative scenario, I suggest that good contingency planning forces us to prepare for such a scenario (among other scenarios, of course).

1-9

FT, based on 3 sources, says the U.S. has urged Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries.

The reasons cited make very little sense 🧵

If the story is true, Allied experts and govts should urge the White House to come back to reason.

ft.com/content/98f15b… 2-9

The fears the FT reports:

- Global crude oil prices may rise because Russia may "retaliate" by destroying the CPC oil pipeline that takes oil from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea through Russia
- Global crude oil prices may rise no stated reason

This is silly.

1-x

A few points from President Macron's television interview with TF1 and France2 (link at end).

Rough summary, not chronological.

Journalist asks if he rules out sending troops to Ukraine

Macron: "Are you sitting down now? Do you rule out standing up after this interview?" 2-x

The journalists then try to pin Macron down quite aggressively - where, when, what. But that's evidently not the purpose.

1-6

Pekka is right to classify Pope Francis as a Vatnik, i.e., "a steadfast jingoistic follower of propaganda from the Russian government", as the formal definition goes.

But I see a larger problem: organised Christianity has been subverted from the top down.

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1712072875753013412

2-6

Catholicism is led by a Kremlin-friendly imbecile.

Orthodox Christianity is sullied by the Russian Orthodox Church in all its forms and manifestations.

American evangelical communities are penetrated by cult-like attitudes towards Donald Trump.

A most ungodly landscape.

1-7

Scholz torn down in the UK for his antics

Strong language from the former Chair of the Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood in the Telegraph, and Ben Wallace, former Def Sec, and Alicia Kearns, current Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, in the Standard.

(sources at end) 2-7
Ben Wallace:
"Scholz’s behaviour has showed that as far as the security of Europe goes he is the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time."

1-20
In my view, there is no reasonable doubt that Donald Trump's genuine intention is to abandon NATO and to allow Russia to destroy Ukraine and brutalise all of Europe.

John Bolton was with Trump in 2018 when he came close to leaving NATO.

politico.com/news/magazine/… 2-20
As Trump's National Security Adviser, Bolton had very many discussions with Trump - this was not a matter of just one angry day in Brussels.

Also, it was not a ploy by Trump to push Europeans to spend more to improve NATO, as some rear-guard defences of Trump claim.

1-8
All of our social media spaces are penetrated by troll farms run by foreign hostile states, especially Russia.
If someone posts anonymously while claiming to be from Texas or Florida, they may or may not be who they say they are.
And we have no clue how many there are. 2-8
This affects everything. It changes the behaviour of all content creators, from established media to independent creators -- because hostile states can artificially boost some ideas, and some political candidates, over others.

1-19

An important warning from Jakub Janda of a very plausible scenario.

We should not allow our national discussions to assume a central scenario of a Russian attack only in several years' time.

Further warning and ideas for victory 🧵

https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1751553059920998473

2-19

We must all plan, also, for a worst case scenario of cataclysm right away in 2025.
Why? Because Russia has momentum.
If Ukraine falls because of a major gap in materiel and ammunition, it would fall slowly at first, for some months, and then it could fall quickly.

1-19

This analysis by @anneapplebaum captures exactly the nature of the problem that Ukraine and ultimately the entire Western world are going through due to the dysfunction of American politics.
Her full text in this 🧵

This is the edge of the abyss.

msn.com/en-us/news/wor… 2-19

"As I write this I am in Warsaw, 170 miles from Poland’s border with Ukraine. The front line, where Ukrainians are right now fighting and dying, is another 450 miles beyond that. Not so far, in other words. A long day’s drive."

(A. Applebaum / The Atlantic)

1-21
A scenario for a possible large-scale Russian war against Europe:
Conventional missile strikes across Europe. Invasion into the Baltics. Interdiction at sea. Cyber-attacks and sabotage elsewhere.

A few bold ideas to make sure it never happens 🧵

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… 2-21

PART 1: (International) Security Policy

We must break the stranglehold of inappropriate arms control treaties that hamper our ability to prepare to defend against an actual Russian attack. Those limitations are harmful from both the defence and deterrence perspectives.

1/
We have an Agreement.
🧵 on selected aspects of the UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Co-Operation of 12 Jan 2024.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a14a6a…
2/
Powerful political vision in the preamble (see image above & link): full restoration to 1991 borders and Russia never attacks again.
The lifting is with the Ukrainian people. But there's direction and commitment.
The Agreement is for 10 years.

1-10
Wess Mitchell writes in FP that America is "a heartbeat away" from a global war that it could lose.
This is true, and it affects in the most drastic way every Western nation, in Europe and in Asia.

European populations and governments, too, must react and must prepare. 2-10
Mitchell writes: "The situation is serious enough that Washington may need to invoke the Defense Production Act and begin converting some civilian industry to military purposes. Even then, the U.S. government may have to take draconian steps..."

1-9
After listening to this recent interview with a senior Hamas leader (left image), and then reading Edward Luce's take on the situation, I have to ask: what part of the word annihilation do people not understand?

2-9
Look at this quote from Edward Luce of the FT:
"Hamas’s barbaric slaughter and Israel’s retaliatory actions have reinforced the case that only a Palestinian state can guarantee Israel’s security"

This is not a responsible way of thinking.

Jerusalem Post:
Hamas torture confirmed as Israeli forensics institute identifies victims
Forensic pathologists, including Israeli staffers as well as volunteers from abroad, were visibly disturbed by the evidence before them.

1-9

jpost.com/israel-news/ar… "In light of the growing international interest in (and denials of) the Palestinian terror group Hamas’ October 7 massacre in southern Israel, representatives of the global press were invited to see the horrors for themselves."

2-9

1-19
The Poland-Ukraine controversy - what really happened, what did it mean, how to interpret it?

First to the source. PM Morawiecki was giving a longer talk to PolsatNews focused on Poland, not on the war - many tweets in a row with extracts were put out on 20 Sept. 2-19
Of these, the one that created the commotion had the phrase "we no longer transfer weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland".
Almost everyone overinterpreted the sentence = it should've been worded differently.