1/ A Ukrainian father built toy tanks for children's parks. Then Russia invaded.

Now his combat robots are hunting real Russian tanks on the battlefield.

This is the wild story of how one inventor went from amusement rides to building Ukraine's robot army 🧵⤵️ 2/ As @DefenderMediaUA reports, the transformation of Tank Bureau perfectly captures Ukraine's wartime innovation spirit.

In 2017, Dmytro Mamonov was building mini T-34 replicas for kids to ride in Kyiv parks ... ⤵️

1/ "In Donbas, Ukrainians are killing waves of Russians on motorbikes—

—but when the Russians stall at the front, they bomb Ukrainian cities.”

A trusted frontline Ukrainian officer told me how Ukraine is holding the line—and the ONE plot-changing thing Trump can do 🧵⤵️ 2/ The hinge is Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian town meaning "protection of the Virgin Mary."

For 13 months, self-serving, lazy Western media & think-tank “experts” predicted it would fall to Russia:

Sept ’24, Dec ’24, June ’25, July, last week…

It hasn’t. Ukraine keeps holding.⤵️

🧵 1/ Yesterday, Russia bombed Ukraine's most Catholic city.

Despite the air raid, people walked to Mass. Priests chanted in Latin as walls shook.

Every virtue @JDVance says Europe has lost is alive in Lviv.

And Putin wants it erased before MAGA learns the truth. 🧵⤵️ 2/ At dawn on October 5, Russia sent Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and scores of killer drones in the biggest attack on Lviv since World War II.

Journalist David Kirichenko (@DVKirichenko) reports in @Forbes: This was targeted—at Ukraine's Catholic and cultural heart. ⤵️

1/ See the fire here? That's a Russian oil refinery.

The Russian War Machine, though insanely violent, is proving to be a paper tiger when you strike its heart.

It's drones, rather than diplomats, who are making this possible.

Here's what Trump is starting to see. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Ukraine has knocked offline 38% of Russia’s oil refineries, forced its Black Sea navy into retreat, and built a drone wall accounting for 80% of Russian equipment losses.

As David Kirichenko (@DVKirichenko) reports via the @LowyInstitute, Russia is facing chaos. ⤵️

1/ Today is the Feast of the Protective Veil of the Virgin Mary—"Pokrovsk" in Ukrainian.

Pokrovsk is ALSO a besieged city that's held on as THE protective veil of the eastern front.

Experts said it would fall a year ago.

The media is missing this amazing story.🧵⤵️ 2/ The headlines in 2024:

“Pokrovsk might fall to Russia”—Euronews, Aug 30

“Pokrovsk…packing up fast, Russians 7 miles away”—Guardian, Aug 27

“Pokrovsk on cusp of falling”—Al Jazeera, Sept 4

“Just 1.5 km outside Pokrovsk”—Reuters, Dec 13

👋 It's 2025. Pokrovsk holds. ⤵️

1/ Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed drones have terrorized Ukraine’s cities for 3 years.

These flocks of cheap flying bombs drain air defences and murder people in their sleep.

Now a startup in Lviv has unveiled Ukraine’s homemade answer: the KROOK-1. 🧵⤵️ 2/ According to @DefenderMediaUA, Lviv mil-tech firm First Parsec revealed KROOK-1 at the IT Arena tech conference last week (@itarenaua).

The company says it’s Ukraine’s first 'pulsejet kamikaze drone' ⤵️

1/ “My former unit would not last 48 hours out there.”

That’s what a US Special Forces veteran said after seeing Ukraine’s front lines.

Eighteen months later, dozens more ex-soldiers echo the same DIRE warning: The West is NOT ready. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Western militaries—trained for Iraq, Afghanistan, & “traditional” wars—are unprepared for the drone swarm battlefields of Ukraine.

In their arrogance, they think Ukraine's situation is something they will never have to face.

🎥imagine if these 🇨🇳drones were armed 😱⤵️

1/ Ukraine just dropped SIX new battlefield robots at once.

From drone motherships to med-evac robots, Ukrainian garage-tech innovation is putting Big Defense in shock.

@SecWar, bring this briefing to the next Cabinet meeting. 🧵⤵️ 2/ @DefenderMediaUA got an inside look at the new releases from Ukrainian startup @devdroid_tech at Lviv's annual buzzing IT Arena conference, @itarenaua, which I just attended.

Here’s the brilliant new kit that can help stop the Sino-Russian War Machine👇⤵️

🚨 Six extraordinary takeaways from Trump's transformative post about Ukraine!

🧵⤵️ 1. For the first time an American president says Ukraine can WIN:

"I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form."

No more "as long as it takes" ... ⤵️

1/ The ways Ukrainians and Russians define the words "victory," "crime," and "hospital" explain the VAST difference between the two nations—

—and it shows that Ukraine and Russia are polar extremes of how to live on this planet.

Thread 🧵⤵️ 2/ WORD ONE—VICTORY.

In Russian, victory is "pobeda," literally meaning "after the misery."

In Ukrainian, victory is "peremoha" = "over or beyond limits/ability."

Spot the difference?

1/ Ukraine's soldiers hack robots in the trenches.

Weapons that lasted 6 months in 2022 are now obsolete in DAYS.

One reporter went alone to the frontlines. What he found shows that the Pentagon is catastrophically unprepared.🧵⤵️ 2/ These insights come from David Kirichenko (@DVKirichenko), speaking on Jonathan Fink's @CurtainSilicon podcast.

Kirichenko isn't a hotel-rooftop reporter. American son of Ukrainian refugees, he drives alone to the front with no team or extraction plan. ⤵️

🚨 RUSSO-IRANIAN KILLER DRONES ARE OVER POLAND/NATO RIGHT NOW.

We have reports of Polish/Nato air defense working against this Russian incursion.

Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, & the Netherlands have fighters up.

Meanwhile, scores of Russian drones are over Ukraine. Rzeszów Airport in eastern Poland is shutdown due to the Russian killer drone threat.

1/ On Sunday mornings, Russia sends bombs.
Ukraine sends prayers.

Russia is not a Christian nation.
In fact, by practice, it's Islamic.

And here’s the kicker: Ukraine has more churchgoers than Russia—even though Russia is 4x bigger.

Putin lies. Numbers don't 🧵⤵️ 2/ In Russia, at least 1 in 3 active worshipers are Muslim, who make up about 10% of the population.

Meanwhile, not even 6% of Russian Orthodox worship weekly.

The churches have been empty since the Bolsheviks’ 1917 war on Christianity. ⤵️

1/ Nixon warned in 1992:

Russia without communism would become MORE dangerous. And he was right.

He also gave another prediction: a way to stop it 🧵⤵️ 2/ In March 1992—just months after the USSR's collapse—former President Richard Nixon issued a chilling memo to President George H.W. Bush:

“A new Russian despotism, unburdened by the dying faith in communism… will be even more dangerous than Soviet totalitarianism." ⤵️

1/ When China invades Taiwan, will they be unprepared like Russia was in Ukraine?

No. Every month brings new proof that Chinese–Russian military cooperation is more than smiles at Beijing parades.

Hacked documents show China is studying, planning, and learning fast. 🧵⤵️ 2/ The hacktivists @blackmoon_group are leaking Russian defense files.

Latest drop: June 2024—Moscow sent Beijing the 7th package of Sword-208 Taiwan invasion plans.

We know from prior leaks that Sword 208 is a digital playbook + control software for an amphibious landing ⤵️

1/ Putin’s sneakiest weapon in Ukraine isn’t a missile.

It's an Islamist-style terror network masquerading as Orthodox churches.

Fact: 85% of Ukrainians are Christian. Only 4% follow Moscow’s clergy, who work for Putin.

Ukraine's Christians (📸) lead the resistance🧵⤵️ 2/ This explosive report comes from Steven Moore (@MooreUSA), a Republican former congressional chief of staff now based in Kyiv, helping America understand Ukraine.

His org, Ukraine Freedom Project, just dropped A Faith Under Siege—a film exposing Putin’s war on Christians. ⤵️

1/ Are NATO forces in Ukraine? That's what Russians want to believe.

Which is why they force Ukrainian prisoners of war to march chanting nursery rhymes in German, English, and Polish.

A look at school-shooter level of twisted degeneracy ... 🧵⤵️ 2/ Friends who work with recently exchanged Prisoners of War are sending me testimonies from Ukrainians who survived these bizarre Russian camps.

Let's descend into a twisted world, as narrated by one of the Snake Island heroes, now back in Ukraine ⤵️

1/ From a coffee break in Copenhagen they just steered a killer robot in war-zone Ukraine.

An incredible new tech enables real-time, zero-lag control, even from 2,000km away.

War from home is the new work from home. 🧵⤵️ 2/ At DALO EXPO 2025—Denmark's premier defense exhibition, held in August—visitors witnessed something both encouraging and chilling, as reported by @DefenderMediaUA.

With a simple interface controller they could operate an actual combat robot deep in Ukraine, in real-time. ⤵️

1/ Washington, move. Kyiv is becoming the drone-tech capital of the world.

In 2022, Ukraine produced 0 military drones. In 2024 it produced 2 million—and aims for 4+ million in 2025.

Their secret? Skipping defense giants and unleashing garage-born brilliance 🧵⤵️ 2/ Ukrainian soldiers don’t drown in bureaucratic reports. No time for that. They tell developers what they need that week.

Hackathons, gov & NGO-run challenges, and direct comms mean drones are built for real battlefield problems, not PowerPoint slides.

📸drone fundraiser ⤵️

1/ Ukraine’s streets are safe—except when Russian illegal immigrants attack.

European & American streets are NOT safe: 3 Ukrainian women were raped or killed just this past week.

With war zones safer than Western cities, something’s broken. Time to face the dual threat! 🧵⤵️ 2/ In the past week—

Paris police arrested a Libyan refugee for raping a Ukrainian woman by the Eiffel Tower.

In Germany, an Iraqi man pushed a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl under a freight train.

In Charlotte, USA—a local man stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee to death. ⤵️

1/ Beijing and Moscow are preparing for war—while the West sleeps.

China has bought farmland near more than 30 U.S. military bases.

Russia is building churches overlooking European nuclear plants & security sites.

Are we stupid? 🧵⤵️ 2/ Well, Texas and Finland aren't stupid.

Texas just made it illegal for citizens of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to buy or rent land.

And Finnish authorities have shut down a Russian Orthodox church located near the naval base in Turku.

What’s going on? ⤵️