1/ Ukraine isn't just fighting for its own survival.

It's building the defense tech that could determine whether Taiwan survives a Chinese invasion.

Here's why Washington will want to care—and what the White House still doesn't know 🧵THREAD ⤵️ 2/ While the Western defense industry focuses on what SELLS, Ukraine has become the world's leading lab for low-cost, rapidly-developing defense tech THAT WORKS.

No other democracy has anything like it, as I see here every day, and as Daniel Runde writes at @TheNatlInterest ⤵️

Russia is running a jihadi-style recruitment operation inside Europe. Not metaphorically. Structurally.

It's from the Islamist psychological playbook—target the vulnerable, escalate slowly, create dependence.

And it only cost €50 per recruit to destabilize Europe ... 🧵⤵️ 2/ This is a structured Russian operational model: civilians recruited to carry out sabotage, arson, and destabilisation as part of a deliberate hybrid warfare campaign inside Europe.

A report by @GLOBSEC has uncovered the sordid details. ⤵️

1/ I am an American in Ukraine. Reporting here every single day of the full-scale invasion, I have seen the heroes of a great resistance.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I want to toast the following groups of humans.

Please add the names of those you wish to thank— 🧵⤵️ 2/ To the Ukrainian defender-warriors who hold the line, whether they volunteered freely or dutifully submitted to conscription, whole or wounded.

They face a hell most don't even want to consider. One day, the world will see they held the line for Europe and the USA. ⤵️

1/ Ukrainian warriors call American combat drones "irrelevant."

Not because the quality is bad. But because the ecosystem is wrong—slow, rigid, & expensive.

Ukraine is building what the Pentagon can't obtain.

Facing China, here's what the White House needs to know🧵⤵️ 2/ The critique, straight from the battlefield:

US drones like iFlight's BumbleBee were "a good solution at the start of the invasion."

But now?

→ Can't adapt fast with Ukraine's military
→ American pricing doesn't fit an ecosystem racing to out-innovate the enemy ⤵️

1/ Russia's strongest weapon against Europeans isn't nukes or gas pipelines.

It's European guilt.

And it's time to stop letting Russians use it, because Europe, when it is true to its soul, is Greater than Russia ever could be.

Here's why— 🧵⤵️ 2/ Writing on Substack, Cemil Kerimoglu @cemk_cemil, says that at this dark hour Europe needs MORAL rearmament.

It's time—both internally and externally—for Europe to recall and restore its Greatness, not as a museum-piece of the past but as hard-earned useful virtue. ⤵️

1/ The U.S. is rightly worried about China.

But the country that will shape what China can or can’t do next is Ukraine.

And on this, the Trump administration is CAREENING toward the wrong call—doing exactly what Beijing desires🧵⤵️ 2/ Inside the Trump administration, two factions are locked in a fight:

• One wants to keep arming Ukraine.
• The other wants to pull back and “pivot to China.”

Neither side seems to grasp that these two goals actually fit together. ⤵️

1/ The most credible warnings about Western readiness for the next war are not coming from think tanks.

They’re coming from retired US/NATO soldiers … who also fought in Ukraine.

And they’re all saying the same thing: We’re not ready.🧵⤵️ 2/ Deborah Fairlamb of @greenflagvc, which invests in Ukraine’s frontline mil-tech, says there’s one group the U.S. ignores at its own peril:

American vets who’ve fought with Western armies AND on Ukraine’s battlefields.

They’re sounding the alarm for a reason. ⤵️

1/ Communism wasn’t the problem.

Putin isn’t the problem.

Russia itself is the problem.

Sounds extreme? Well, keep reading 🧵 ⤵️ 2/ @cemk_cemil, PhD in neuroscience and a history reader, makes the following argument—which he shared with me because I often push this concept:

Russia didn’t fall into error—Russia IS the Error that was foretold in the Fatima prophecy of 1917, no less. ⤵️

1/ This is one of the clearest explanations I’ve heard of the mental machinations Russia uses to exert power.

Dr. Douglas Davis lays out the three thinkers whose ideas shape Putinism.

The West consistently misreads the threat. Time to wise up 🧵⤵️ 2/ Speaking on Jonathan Fink’s Oxford-based @CurtainSilicon podcast, Davis says to understand Putinism you need 3 names:

⦿ Yuri Bezmenov (ideological subversion)
⦿ Alexander Dugin (mystical, end-times worldview)
⦿ Vladislav Surkov (hybrid, reflexive-control politics) ⤵️

1/ Europe is playing at war, not preparing for it.

A former Ukrainian Azov officer just delivered the most brutal assessment of European defense I've read.

Western elites think saying "drone" makes them innovative.

He explains why they're catastrophically wrong.🧵⤵️ 2/ At a recent Kyiv drone event, people were asking, Can Russia shift Europe's drone wall?

You can't shift what doesn't exist, replied Lieutenant Colonel @BohdanKrotevych, a survivor of Russian captivity.

But Europeans are clueless, assuming enough drones will save them. ⤵️

1/ Wounded behind enemy lines, you crawl into an armored coffin.

Hit by mines and drones, this robot safely evacuates you through dozens of miles of enemy fire.

Florence Nightingale revolutionized medicine in the first Crimean war. Ukrainians are doing it again. 🧵⤵️ 2/ For 33 days, a Ukrainian soldier lay wounded in a Ukrainian settlement under the invaders' control.

Six rescue attempts had failed.

Then, as @DefenderMediaUA reports, the First Separate Medical Battalion deployed MAUL—a robot they'd built themselves. ⤵️

1/ Dick Cheney cost America dearly. But he led to Donald Trump's success.

Once, while at a private dinner with ex-President George HW Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush, I learned the truth about Cheney—

and about the power structures that today Trump is breaking🧵⤵️ 2/ Former First Lady Barbara Bush, sitting next to me at a restaurant in College Station, Texas, spoke disdainfully of her son, George W.

He thought he could go his own way, she said sadly.

But thankfully, she added, we got Dick to keep him in line.

!! ⤵️

1/ Russia doesn't want Americans to see this map.

Why?

Because Donald Trump says America will protect "our CHERISHED Christians" everywhere—

and this map shows how Russia is trying to destroy Europe's biggest Christian nation.

The epicenter: a place called Mary's Shield🧵⤵️ 2/ Right now, America is mobilizing to defend Nigerian Christians.

Trump just designated Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" and threatened military action to protect "our CHERISHED Christians."

And he said the USA will protect Christians everywhere ⤵️

1/ Russian soldiers are crawling up to Ukrainian minefields at night and disassembling them by hand.

A former "smart home" security engineer in Kyiv just figured out how to stop them. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Victor Shapovalov runs ZMIYAR, making electronic triggers for drone warheads.

Profitable business, thousands sold monthly.

But watching how minefields actually work at the front, he saw a massive problem, as reported in @DefenderMedia ... ⤵️

1/ EUROPE FACES MAKE-OR-BREAK WINTER WAR

Drones pound Ukrainian power plants. Russian pincers advance at Pokrovsk.

The free world's fate hinges on the next 3 months.

Here's an urgent, COLD-SHOWER frontline dispatch from MAGA Americans—including 2 close to Trump officials🧵⤵️ 2/ This eye-opening analysis comes from Dr. Douglas J. Davis, neuroradiologist volunteer for Ukraine, along with Florida-based MAGA political advisors Bert Watson & Mike Hightower, via @thecipherbrief.

Now back in the US, they recently came under fire in Ukraine ⤵️

1/ Ukrainian fighter pilot Vadym Voroshylov says Sweden's Gripen is "the only fighter jet in the world I'd sell my soul for."

Stockholm and Kyiv have struck a deal on this workhorse Swedish fighter.

Here's why the Gripen is so vital to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇸🇪 🧵⤵️ 2/ Sweden and Ukraine have agreed in theory on Gripens—with a plan that could scale to 100–150 jets, with manufacturer Saab even open to final-assembly work in Ukraine if the deal lands.

While American fighter jets are seen as the gold standard, ace pilot Vadym prefers Gripen ⤵️

1/ Trump's rhetoric on Ukraine has fundamentally shifted.

Before: "We need to stop the killing" (making Russia & Ukraine sound equal)

Now: "Stop the Russian war machine" (calling out the aggressor)

But Ukraine is STILL blowing their chance to close the deal.

Here's why 🧵⤵️ 2/ On Thursday Trump's Treasury secretary sanctioned Russia's two largest oil companies, calling them fuel for "the Kremlin's war machine."

This is huge. The White House finally acknowledges Russia must be stopped.

But they STILL don't believe in or even understand Ukraine. ⤵️

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. ⤵️