1/ Americans are being lied to about Ukraine.

I have spent years on the ground here researching what's really happening.

Trump now sees the truth.

With nuclear subs moving around, you need to hear what Trump understands NOW. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Ukrainian mil-tech will either save or destroy the free world.

Their $500 drones are destroying $5M tanks. Ukraine is Defense Tech Valley.

If Ukraine falls, this goes to Russia/China.

If Ukraine wins, America gets a tech superpower ally. ⤵️

1/ 🚨 "Make Ukraine defenseless again?"

Hours ago, Putin met with Belarus's Lukashenko and claimed Russia is "ready" to end the war—but only under extreme conditions from June 2024.

Let's break down what this really means 🧵⤵️ 2/ Putin's "ceasefire" conditions:

—Ukrainian forces must fully withdraw from 4 regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia)

—Ukraine must commit to NEVER joining NATO

—Ukraine must adopt neutral, non-aligned, non-nuclear status

Notice anything? 👇⤵️

1/ His cameras helped you watch your pets. Now they help kill Russian drones.

Y Combinator alum abandons Silicon Valley for wartime Ukraine.

Meet Odd Systems—where pet tech became defense tech overnight. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Yaroslav Azhnyuk, 2016:
—First Ukrainian in @ycombinator
—Built @Petcube—watch your dog from work.

Yaroslav Azhnyuk, 2024:
—Launches Odd Systems.
—Builds thermal cameras that turn consumer drones into precision weapons.

Pet entrepreneur → defense CEO in 24 months.⤵️

🧊 Russia and China are quickly militarizing the Arctic—unopposed.

Moscow now commands 36+ icebreakers—including nuclear-powered vessels—while America has just TWO.

But Ukraine's battle-tested tech could come to NATO's rescue. Here's the next battleground. 🧵⤵️ 2/ As @DVKirichenko, who often reports from Ukraine's frontlines, writes in @TheNatlInterest, NATO's Arctic defenses are dangerously outdated while Moscow and Beijing forge an "Arctic axis."

It's pretty damn chilling! ⤵️

1/ He told us exactly what Russia would do in the face of weakness. We should have listened.

Nearly 80 years ago, Winston Churchill delivered the speech that defined the Iron Curtain—and warned of shadows ahead.

Here are the key points of the SINEWS OF PEACE speech 🧵⤵️ 2/ "From what I have seen of our Russian friends ... I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength—

—and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness."

The ex-PM knew the playbook. ⤵️

1/ Russia and China are TESTING paratrooper command systems to invade Taiwan.

The @blackmoon_group hackers, which I've been tracking and whose work I've been verifying, have shared meeting reports between Chinese customers & Russian contractors.

They're moving quickly😱🧵⤵️ 2/ Yesterday I showed you the Russo-Sino contract for an "air landing command system."

TODAY we have the actual meeting notes: They're not just planning.

Russia & China are TESTING systems that will digitally connect every Chinese paratrooper dropping on Taiwan. ⤵️

1/ Whatever @FBIDDBongino discovered recently left him "shocked to his core."

Whatever Jimmy Carter learned involved psychic powers.

Whatever Donald Trump knows inspired him to pray to St. Michael.

It's high time we connected some wild, strange dots. Let's go ➡️ 🧵⤵️ 2/ This week FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino posted:

"What I have learned has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a Republic like this. I'll never be the same."

But still no details, about Epstein or anything. This is an old pattern ... ⤵️

1/ Don't Push the Horses—what does it mean?

When Ukrainians protested the government for removing the independence of anti-corruption boards, this phrase was heard over and over.

To me, it shows that the USA and Ukraine are more alike than anyone else! Here's why 🧵⤵️
2/ A few days ahead of his victory over Daniel Dubois, Oleksandr Usyk @usykaa cheekily, cryptically repeated this phrase at a press conference.

To Ukrainians it means, calm down, don't jump to conclusions. But the way Usyk said it gave it another spirit, soon to be clear ... ⤵️

1/ 🚨👀 Russia is helping China prepare to invade Taiwan.

Pro-freedom hackers leaked a shocking $34.9M defense contract. I've verified it's credible.

The details are alarming. 🧵⤵️ 2/ The Black Moon hacktivist group released a contract between Russia's Rosoboronexport and China's CETC International for an "Automation System for Air Landing Command"—

— a nerve center for coordinating massive airborne assaults across water. 👀⤵️

1/ As an American reporting from Ukraine for 3.5 years, I must share reality from the ground—even uncomfortable ones.

This essay by Ukrainian journalist Olena Kozii captures what many are feeling—from military to civil society.

Russia doesn't want you to hear this. 🧵⤵️ 2/ Why? Because it destroys the Kremlin's propaganda narrative of "Zelenskyy's war."

As we saw this week, the will of the people is the heart of Ukraine's resistance—a truth that undermines all false narratives.

Olena helps us unpack that truth⤵️

1/ "There's corruption in EVERY country. What's different about Ukraine is that people call it out. Loudly. Regularly. Together."

American investor Deborah Fairlamb was at the Kyiv protests this week.

Her first-hand account reveals what Western media gets completely wrong 🧵⤵️ 2/ The scene, per Deborah: Thousands of people peacefully gathered—chanting, singing.

And just ONE police car, 3 blocks away.

These Ukrainians came out during wartime to protest ONE thing: a law threatening their anti-corruption agencies. ⤵️

1/ In London, power lives in Westminster & Buckingham Palace.

In Washington—the Capitol and White House.

In Moscow—the Kremlin.

But in Kyiv?

The real power isn't where you'd expect.

I'm here now, and what I've witnessed will show you the REAL reason for Russia’s war. 🧵⤵️ 2/ The symbol of true power in Ukraine isn't a palace or government building.

In Kyiv, those are tucked away, almost hidden.

At a crossroads between two ancient domed churches sits a square.

It's called the Maidan—or public square. That is the center of power. ⤵️

🧵1/ Everyone's watching drone wars in the sky.

But Ukraine's Khartiia brigade has war-fighting drones on the ground—laying minefields and evacuating the wounded.

Here's the untold revolution, as revealed to @DefenderMediaUA 🧵⤵️ 2/ 🇺🇦 Backed by billionaire @VsevolodKozhem1, who donned a uniform himself, the Kharkiv-based Khartiia Brigade attracts poets, rockstars, and tech innovators.

Their motto: "We're building the new Ukrainian army"—using NATO standards while stopping Russian "meat assaults." ⤵️

1/ The UK's @LordAshcroft—billionaire philanthropist—just called Ukraine's Azov commander "one of the most legendary figures of the 21st century."

Smeared by Russia and left-media as 'Nazi,' Azov is the opposite. And it just might be the fighting force the free world NEEDS.🧵⤵️ 2/ Lord Ashcroft, Baron of Chichester, met Azov's commander fresh from battle. What he discovered was like a morning ice plunge.

This businessman saw that Azov is tyranny's great enemy.

Maybe this is why Washington elites have helped the Kremlin smear Azov for years. ⤵️

1/ How do you out-innovate a larger, better-funded competitor when failure means death?

Ukraine's Nemesis regiment cracked the code—becoming perhaps the most effective unit at defeating Russian drones by thinking like a startup, not a military unit.

Here's their playbook 🧵⤵️ 2/ At a Kyiv mil-tech meetup, three defense innovators revealed what's working:

⚫️ Artem Martynenko, MoD Innovation Centre;
⚫️ Artem Belenkov, Nemesis regiment; &
⚫️ "Chicago," IT specialist turned special forces

Here's what they've learned, as told to @DefenderMediaUA ... ⤵️

1/ 🧵 From a hospital bed after his third concussion fighting near Bakhmut, a Ukrainian warrior sent a LinkedIn message that would become a $5M defense company.

Now he's CEO of British-Ukrainian Trypillian—boosting mil-tech that most VCs won't fund 🧵⤵️ 2/ The warrior-turned-CEO is Ivan Matveichenko.

His hospital LinkedIn message went to Brooks Newmark, a former British MP—now his backer.

They saw what VCs missed, as told to @DefenderMediaUA:

Brilliant Ukrainian engineers building weapons with no time for business. ⤵️

1/ 🧵 "Bring your military tech to Ukraine. Let it fail. Don't be afraid to say, 'I brought my stuff to Ukraine and it failed, but we stayed and learned ... and now it is that much better.'"

American investor Deborah Fairlamb says what many Western firms won't admit. 🧵 ⤵️ 2/ Deborah Fairlamb, an American who lived in Kyiv before the full-scale war and chose to stay, is co-founder of @greenflagvc, which brings investments to battlefield-proven Ukrainian tech.

On Jonathan Fink's @CurtainSilicon, she reveals what the West needs to learn ⤵️

1/ 🧵"Every senior Russian officer for the rest of their life is going to be looking over their shoulder and checking under their car."

Lt. General Ben Hodges (Ret.) explains why Russia's mass is now its vulnerability—and why only Western will prevents Ukrainian victory 🧵👇 2/ General Hodges commanded US Army Europe 2014-2018 during Russia's initial invasion. Now at @cepa, he tells @CurtainSilicon a stark truth:

"If we wanted to, Russia would've been knocked out of this a couple of years ago, but we haven't demonstrated the political will" ⤵️

1/ 🧵 Russians are coming at Ukrainians with WWII motorcycles, golf carts, AND with fiber optic drones.

Ukrainian defender Dimko Zhluktenko @dim0kq shares the shocking reality from the bizarre frontline.

Some wild stuff in here 🧵⤵️ 2/ Dimko flies reconnaissance drones deep into occupied territory while living in underground bunkers 10-15km from the front, in the kill zone. He shared raw and illuminating stories with Jonathan Fink in Oxford, UK, on the @CurtainSilicon podcast ⤵️

1/ 🧵Ukrainian engineers are revolutionizing military robotics—at 1/10th the cost of Western systems.

Tencore robotics firm just raised $3.7M from US investors at a $40M valuation. Ukraine is becoming THE defense tech valley.

Time to pay attention! 🧵 ↓ 2/ Tencore, whose motto is "Let robots fight," has released its flagship robot, the TerMIT UGV.

It's a Swiss Army knife on tracks:

—Logistics & supply runs
—Medical evac under fire
—Mine clearance
—Fire support missions

and the price ... ⤵️

🧵Florence Nightingale transformed medicine during the first Crimean War.

Now with drones causing "almost all" injuries & wounded soldiers stranded for days, medics in Ukraine are pioneering techniques NATO has never seen.

Here are survival instructions for the West 🧵⤵️
2/ "Mark an ambulance, and it'll be hit within 15 minutes."

Reporter David Kirichenko (@DVKirichenko), filing from the front lines of Ukraine, shares the chilling reality—but also the incredible Ukrainian medical advancements. Let's look— ⤵️