$1.1B flowed from the state budget into the pockets of ministers, police generals and judges. Now Russia claws it back.

Over 5–7 years, authorities seized 100B rubles in corruption cases.

In total, the state grabbed 4T rubles ($44B) in assets. It sold only 8%. ––Moscow Times.1/ Example: billionaire Konstantin Strukov.

The state seized his gold company Yuzhuralzoloto. He had funded United Russia for years. Now he sits in pretrial detention. 2/

Former CIA Director Petraeus: Ukraine plans to produce 7 million drones this year, compared to roughly 300,000 in the US. It’s at the forefront of modern warfare.

If you want to see the future of war, come to Ukraine — on both sides, innovation is moving fast.

1/ Petraeus: Ukraine’s innovation is extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. The speed at which new drone capabilities are deployed is remarkable.

It has helped offset Russia’s advantages — five times more manpower and an economy 10–15 times larger.

2/

Former CIA Director Petraeus: I said from the start Russia would not take Kyiv. Others predicted it would fall in 3–5 days. Kyiv is a vast city with brave defenders.

It would be extremely hard to break in — and Ukraine’s actions denied Russia the airfield north of the capital.1/ Petraeus: The Budapest Memorandum was a major failure.

Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from the US, Russia, and the UK and those guarantees weren’t upheld. This is Ukraine’s war for independence — a fight for its very survival.

2/

Former CIA Director Petraeus: When about 20 drones violated Polish airspace, Warsaw didn’t call Brussels or Washington, it called Kyiv.

Ukraine is the most advanced in building a “drone wall,” showing how to defend vast front lines.

1/ Petraeus: I don’t think Russia will move against a NATO country until it achieves its aims in Ukraine — and likely takes Moldova next.

Russian troops remain in Transnistria. After that, a Baltic state, possibly Lithuania, could be targeted.

2X

I really tried to listen to the lecture, but all I heard was a woman crying against the wall near me.

A mother crying, searching for her son.

And my own mother’s voice: ‘Hold on, another rocket is coming’ — Yuliia, a KSE student in Ukraine, Kyiv.

1/ Yuliia: We fled Kharkiv on day one of the invasion.

That’s how my life of endless rented apartments and new schools began.

Ivano-Frankivsk felt calm — until a missile hit a university on my street and power cuts lasted 16 hours a day.

2/

Angela Stent, Former National Intel Officer: Every time Witkoff claims progress on Ukraine, the next day Putin or Lavrov restate the same demands — withdrawal from Donbas and “denazification”.

They also cite an “Anchorage formula” no US official confirms. It’s obfuscation. 1/ Stent: Russia's negotiations are entirely performative.

They follow Soviet and post-Soviet tactics: negotiate to create a process and wear people down. Putin wants to humor Trump to avoid more punitive actions from the US administration. 2X

Former Amb. to Ukraine, William Taylor: Putin can't break Ukraine’s will. He’s tried for 4 years.

They don’t show signs of breaking. Soldiers, civilians, people in and out of government know that if they lose, there’s no Ukraine. They have to win and stop the Russians. 1/ Taylor: We want to see Ukrainians stop the Russians. Europeans want the same because Russia is a clear threat to them.

They’re stepping up with a $100B loan and continued funds. If big neighbors invade little ones and prevail, that’s not the world we want to live in. 2/

Macron: Russian energy stopped in 2022. There is no way back.

China as a supermarket for our export is over, and during the past 2 years we were overwhelmed by the Chinese export.

The US is imposing tariffs on us and a series of economic coercion mechanisms. 1/ Macron: End of Russia as a permanent provider of local energy. End of China as a main export market. The US is imposing tariffs on our economy and a coercion mechanism.

This is a game changer. This is not just a transition. None of these factors will change in the short run. 2/

Mearsheimer: What is the plausible deal that will satisfy the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the Americans?

There is no plausible deal. We pretend these talks will lead somewhere when there is no chance they are going to lead anywhere. 1/ Mearsheimer: Hope here is that Ukraine’s situation in the war deteriorates to the point where they have no choice but to reach some sort of armistice with Russia and we get a cold peace. I think that’s the only plausible outcome. 2/

Pomerantsev: Russia tailors messages for different audiences: anti-imperialism for the left, ethnic purity and Christianity for the right.

But the core narrative is the world is corrupt, there are no values to fight for, might is right and predatory powers now take over. 1/ Pomerantsev: Russia is failing economically and on the front lines. It’s trying to bomb Ukraine into political chaos, yet there are no signs of revolt.

What it does well is storytelling — convincing the world, sometimes even Washington, that it’s winning. 2/

Rutte: Putin is trying to break the people of Ukraine, hoping to weaken their resolve.

But Ukraine and Ukrainian people have shown time and again that they will not be broken. 1/ Rutte: Germany by 2029 will spend €152B on defense. That is more than double what they were spending in 2021. 2/

Russia praised him as a wounded war hero. He now says he shot himself in the leg so he wouldn’t go back to the war in Ukraine.

Officer Yevgeny Korobov: the only way out was dead or wounded.

He chose wounded, fled Russia, and faces up to 15 years for desertion — RFE/RL. 1/ In 2022, Russian state TV staged a reunion with his mother and claimed he had saved his unit under fire.

Korobov says his commander embellished the story. He stood on stage in uniform while recovering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and fearing they would send him back. 2/

Zelenskyy for Bloomberg: None of the sides is keen on the idea of a free economic zone in Donbas — neither the Russians nor us.

The next round is tentatively set for Tuesday or Wednesday in the US. There is understanding on ceasefire monitoring, but more work is needed.

1/ Zelenskyy: I accepted a US offer to host talks next week; territory issue will be central.

Neither side is keen on a free economic zone. We have different views and will return with a clearer vision. If it is our territory — and it is — Ukraine must govern it.

2/

Former MI6 Chief Moore: If we don't stand up to Putin and ensure that he does not win in Ukraine, then his stomach will grow with the eating.

He may test Europe in other ways. We have to stick by the Ukrainians. 1/ Moore: Behind Putin is Xi Jinping and the Chinese government.

Putin would have already have lost were it not for the Chinese support that he has garnered. Making sure that the Ukrainians win through in the end is absolutely vital. 2/

FT: Ukraine plans to announce elections on February 24 after the US told Kyiv to hold them by May 15 — or risk losing proposed US security guarantees.

At the same time, the Zelenskyy Office says elections are impossible without proper security conditions. 1/ According to the FT, Kyiv is considering holding presidential elections alongside a national referendum on any peace deal with Russia.

Ukrainian and Western officials familiar with the discussions confirm active planning. 2/

Russia knows it can’t create a second Ukrainian SSR. Its goal is the destruction of Ukraine — “Novorossiya,” LNR/DNR, “Malorossiya.”

Signs of genocide are clear, including deporting children, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory head Oleksandr Alfyorov for Ukrainska Pravda.1/ Alfyorov: “In Ukraine, Russia needs only two resources: history and children.”

Russia uses history as a weapon — through “Novorossiya,” “LNR,” “DNR,” “Malorossiya,” and the myth of a “fight against Nazism” to justify occupation and erase Ukrainian statehood.

2/

IOC banned Ukrainian skeleton racer from wearing helmet with faces of athletes killed by Russia at the Olympics.

Vladyslav Heraskevych: "The IOC is betraying those athletes who were part of the Olympic movement, not allowing them to be honored" — The Telegraph. 1/ Heraskevych wore the helmet at Cortina d'Ampezzo.

On it: figure skater Dmytro Sharpar, killed defending Bakhmut in 2023. Weightlifter Alina Peregudova, 14, killed with her mother by russian shelling in Mariupol in 2022. Strongman Pavlo Ishchenko, killed in combat in 2025. 2/

Chris Wright, US Energy sec.: Russia is funding its war by selling oil, gas and coal. Europe is the biggest buyers of Russian oil and natural gas to this day.

Trump is saying you’re helping fund this war machine, so we’re going to stop large buyers. 1/ Chris Wright: What’s India doing right now? It’s looking to buy more oil from the United States, probably more from Venezuela and other sources.

One way to help end the war in Ukraine is to starve the Russian war machine. 2X

Russian schools now teach children that Winston Smith — the hero of Orwell’s 1984 — was a “radical” with “destructive behavior” — The Times.

In the novel, Smith resists a totalitarian state, questions propaganda, and hates the ruling Party.

In Tomsk, Russia frames it as a crime.

1/ 1984 was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988 and circulated underground among dissidents.

In 2022 it became the most downloaded fiction book in Russia.

Officials claimed readers loved it not as a warning about totalitarianism, but as a critique of “modern liberalism.”

2/

Russian Ambassador to the UK Kelin: We could fight in Ukraine like the US did in Iraq, crushing cities, but we don’t. This war is slow and ‘surgical,’ to preserve civilians.

[Russia killed more than 15,000 civilians since 2022, this is how they preserve civilians.]

1/ Kelin: Three rounds of peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul brought little result except prisoner exchanges.

Russia sticks to the Anchorage understandings with the US. Ukraine, despite a losing position, is trying to dictate its own terms.

2/

He lay for five days with shattered legs, without water, under constant enemy drone strikes. Until evacuation, he continued to correct drone fire on Russian positions.

This is the story of Pavlo from Ukraine’s 68th Brigade, reported by Ukraine Witness. 1/ Pavlo and his unit went on a reconnaissance mission. Russian forces had already zeroed in on the route. A mortar strike began.

Pavlo suffered severe shrapnel wounds to both legs and lost the ability to walk. One soldier was killed. Another managed to retreat. Pavlo stayed behind. 2/