Putin's shadow war on EU is no longer run by professionals. The Kremlin lost most of its spy networks and replaced them with desperate people willing to work for cash.

🧵One taxi driver shows what that looks like in practice Western security officials say Aleksei Kolosovsky, a 42-year-old from Krasnodar, has become a key facilitator in the Kremlin's sabotage campaign across Europe.

He is not a trained intelligence officer. He is a former cab driver who investigators say works closely with the GRU.

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Over 12,000 complaints about commanders killing their own soldiers, filed with Russian military prosecutors over three and a half years of war.

A team of journalists tracked the officers doing it and identified over 60 by name: [🧵1/12]
The investigation, "Обнулители" (The Nullifiers) published in Verstka (@verstka_media), by Ivan Zhadaev, Olesya Gerasimenko, Rina Richter, and Ivan Smurov documents how Russian officers execute their own troops through beatings, forced assaults, and drone strikes on the wounded:

[2/12]verstka.media/im-pohuj-kogo-…

Polish border guards found a tunnel from Belarus that was 1.5 meters high, braced with concrete, and built by specialists Warsaw believes came from the Middle East.

🧵Here is how Moscow is turning migration into a weapon against Europe — [1/9]
The tunnel near Narewka was reportedly 1.5 meters high and braced to prevent collapse. Warsaw believes Belarus brought in Middle Eastern specialists with direct experience in complex tunnel construction to design and build them.

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Sedanka has no running water, no indoor toilets.

What it does have: a brand-new monument to the "heroes of the special military operation."

A village of 258 people has lost 12 men, 7 more are missing (🧵Read on) Winter temperatures here, 7,000km from Ukraine, fall to -10C and below. Firewood is how people survive. But with all the men gone, local women say there is nobody to gather and chop it.

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My friend Boris Nemtsov was murdered 11 years ago today. He was one of the few who openly challenged Putin, and it cost him his life.

🧵The case was solved just enough to bury it. [1/10] We met in the 1990s. Over two decades, different paths, different fates. While I was in prison, Boris stood at pickets holding my portrait, supported my family, and never stopped fighting for my freedom. You don't forget thinks like that.

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Dialog with Putin isn't just possible — it's unavoidable.

But the Europeans pushing for it are focused on the wrong thing entirely.

↓ Here's what they should focus on instead 🧵 At the @MunSecConf, many European politicians asked me whether dialog with Putin is still possible, or even desirable.

My position has not changed in four years: yes, there must be dialog. He is an enemy, but you must always talk to your enemy.

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Putin sold Russia's partnership with China as a triumph of multipolarity.

In reality, he's turned Russia into Beijing's discount gas station — and a new report lays out exactly how deep the dependency goes.

(🧵Read on — 1/12) The @nestcentreorg report "Marriage Without Love" makes a simple argument: this is not the strategic alliance they swear it is. Instead, it is a transactional arrangement built on necessity, opportunism, and shared hostility toward the West.

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Georgy Avaliani didn't want to kill Ukrainians. For that, he was thrown in a basement and tortured. He escaped on his 3rd attempt.

🧵Now Germany says he can go back safely. Germany is wrong — [1/10] Georgy Avaliani was mobilised in September 2022 and sent to the front weeks later. After trying to flee the war, he was captured and tortured in a makeshift detention cell known as 'the basement'

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We were taught that truth is the best weapon.

That if people have access to facts, they'll figure it out.

This turned out to be completely, dangerously wrong

(🧵Read on) Information is no longer scarce: everyone has access to it. The Kremlin understood this sooner than most. Unlike Pravda in Soviet times, they don't see hiding facts as the biggest priority — instead, they flood you with versions of events until you start drowning in them.

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The Abu Dhabi talks won't end the war—but they're far from pointless. Here's what they could actually achieve, and why Putin may be forced to soften his demands within months: 🧵[1/8] Previous rounds of talks have led to some important, albeit limited results. First and foremost, I'm talking about prisoner exchanges - the UAE has mediated 17 of them in the past four years, allowing thousands of captured soldiers to return to their families

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A Bangladeshi janitor arrived in Russia expecting a cleaning job. Within weeks, he was sent to the front lines in Ukraine with a rifle in his hands.

🧵Read on to learn how Putin is avoiding another round of mobilization: [1/12] An investigation by @ap has found that Russian companies have been approaching Bangladeshi workers, claiming to be recruiting for civilian jobs - but when they arrive in Russia, the migrants are coerced into signing military contracts and deployed into combat zones against their will

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An IT specialist was deported back to Russia at the weekend after being detained for jaywalking in Kazakhstan. The moment his plane landed in Russia, he was arrested for treason.

🧵 The walls are closing in for those fleeing the Putin regime [1/10] Russian-Ukrainian dual citizen Alexander Kachkurkin is one of two people to be handed over to the Kremlin by Kazakhstan in the past four days, which clearly shows that the country is no longer safe for Russians pursued by the regime.

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For years, the West didn't know what to do with Russians who reject Putin. Engage them? Ignore them? Sanction them anyway?

That confusion just ended. @PACE_News has launched a formal platform for Russian democratic forces.

🧵Here's why this matters [1/14] First, what is PACE? The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—the continent's oldest international parliamentary body. 46 countries, founded in 1949 to defend human rights and democratic governance.

Russia was expelled in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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He traveled to visit his elderly parents. Instead, he was arrested for his wife's social media posts.

🧵A Russian-Irish man now faces terrorism charges because he married a Ukrainian citizen [1/6] Dmitry Simbayev, 49, has lived in Ireland for more than 20 years but travels to visit his elderly parents in Chelyabinsk every year. His wife, Darya Petrenko, fled to Ireland in 2022 after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine

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I spent 10 years in Putin's prisons. In 2025, I was labeled a 'terrorist' for opposing the war.

🧵Now leaked Interpol files prove what I've long understood: the Kremlin has weaponized international policing into a worldwide dragnet for those who oppose Putin. [1/14] Over the past decade, Russia has generated three times more complaints to Interpol's oversight body than any other country. More Russian cases have been overturned than those of any other nation.

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What does it look like when a government can silence 90 million people while keeping itself online?

Iran just showed us. Russia is next.

(🧵Read on 1/17) Iran’s internet blackout is a preview of what Russia’s 'sovereign RuNet' is actually for: not resilience, not 'security,' but the ability to plunge the country into darkness while the state keeps operating.

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After more than two years of work, the Russian Democratic Forces Platform at PACE has been successfully established.

A huge thanks to all who contributed their time and political authority to these efforts >>🧵[1/4] The Platform's composition is highly representative on PACE's side (the President, the heads of all political factions...) as well as from the Russian side - all of the most significant Russian anti-war political movements are involved. All of them also signed the Berlin Declaration.

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Imagine attacking a university you never applied to because you think you deserved a personal invitation instead of taking exams like everyone else.

🧵That's Putin with NATO — here's the reality of his paranoid excuses for invading Ukraine: Fact: Russia under Putin never applied to join NATO. Meanwhile, every nation that supposedly "snuck up" on Russia actually waited 5-20 years to meet strict membership criteria on democracy, independent judiciary, and fair elections.

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Putin claims NATO forced his invasion.

Before 2022, the alliance was 1,000 tanks and 700 artillery short of defending just the Baltics.

It was not preparing to attack — was barely capable of self-defense. FACTS 👇 After the Cold War, Europe dismantled its military capacity at a pace no aggressor would consider. Tank numbers dropped from 19,000 to 4,000. Combat aircraft fell from 3,500 to 1,500. Nations planning attacks do not destroy their own weapons for decades leading up to war.

[2/9]mckinsey.com/industries/aer…

A Russian schoolteacher secretly filmed his own workplace as it was turned into a war propaganda machine. That footage is now part of a documentary shortlisted for an Oscar.

Here’s the story behind ‘Mr Nobody in Russia’:👇

[1/12] Pavel Talankin spent most of his life at School No. 1 in Karabash, a small industrial town in Russia’s Urals. First as a student, later as an events coordinator, he ran clubs, filmed concerts, and built a refuge where students felt safe

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Ukraine struck a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean last month. Cutting off oil profits is the obvious motive.

🧵 But what @dossier_center found in the crew records hints at why these ships might matter beyond sanctions

[1/13] According to an investigation by Dossier Center, conducted in cooperation with Norway's NRK, crew lists show two Russians with ties to GRU special forces and the Wagner paramilitary group were aboard the tanker Qendil on its second-to-last voyage.

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