If you had any illusions about Putin's rule and his war, look at this: a regular Russian school.

A boy in tactical gear stands while classmates kick him; his peers were shown photos of corpses and not allowed to call parents.

1/5🧵(Read on) This happened in Belgorod, a city near Ukraine. Men in military uniforms gathered ninth-graders in the auditorium, took away their phones and forbade them from calling parents.

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Is Putin's grip on power weaker than it seems?

I believe so. A single misstep could be his last.

🧵 Here're his top 3 vulnerabilities

[1/12] 1. Putin’s power structure is a careful balancing act.

Like many dictators, he skillfully uses support from the lower levels of society as a tool to intimidate and control his own inner circle. This keeps the elites in line, but this system only works while he is healthy and can manage it effectively.

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Expressing nuclear fears is normal for most people, but in Putin's Russia, it can lead to being forcibly injected with tranquilizers in a psychiatric ward.

🧵 The case of Oleg Savvin reveals the return of Soviet-style punitive psychiatry

[1/8] Oleg Savvin was arrested in Kaliningrad in March for allegedly spreading 'fake news' about the army after he posted on criticizing Putin's aggression and speculating about the global consequences of a nuclear explosion.

[2/8]vk.com

Putin attacks the Russian Antiwar Committee for creating a platform for dialogue with PACE because he knows what we've proven:

🧵 Russians deserve legitimate representation, and we're delivering it

[1/6] The claims being pushed about the Russian Antiwar Committee by the FSB are obviously false and patently absurd. At the same time, they demonstrate that our efforts have clearly hit a raw nerve with Putin

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One of Putin's closest allies didn't quit for "personal reasons" or his alleged war opposition.

🧵$300M blown on elections in Moldova might have something to do with it

(Read on)

As Deputy Chief of Staff of the Kremlin, Dmitry Kozak oversaw the post-Soviet space. An ethnic Ukrainian, he led Russia's negotiations on Donbas for years. His departure coincided with the crushing defeat of pro-Kremlin forces in Moldova's elections.

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Putin's ambitions are crumbling under the weight of reality: China is not the ally he hoped for.

🧵 Here's why: [1/11] No matter how hard Putin tries to please Xi, the partnership between China and Russia ends where the risks of sanctions begin. Without export licenses for dual-use items, Beijing no longer sells even machines with precision of 3–4 microns:

[2/11]newsweek.com/russia-denied-…

There are thousands of Russians in U.S. immigration detention

Several hundred anti-war activists among them face grave danger if deported to Russia.

🧵 We're ready to help identify those most at risk Among the approximately 100,000 Russians seeking asylum or humanitarian visas in the U.S., around 5,000 are being held in immigration detention facilities. Within this group, several hundred individuals face genuine political persecution in Russia due to their anti-war and pro-democracy stances.

The diplomatic chaos around Ukraine is what happens when all sides realize their positions have become unsustainable.

Every major actor has hit their limit.

🧵Here’s why I believe a path to Peace in Ukraine is real:
Let me be blunt about Trump's position as I see it: He doesn't care about Ukrainian sovereignty or Russian security concerns.

He cares about one thing only – reporting back to his voters and getting his Nobel Prize.

7 years after Putin unveiled 5 'invincible' superweapons, only 1 has seen combat.

Now he's betting the Burevestnik missile—which killed 5 people in testing—will end the war on favorable terms.

🧵 The Update on all of Putin’s 2018 Weapons At the end of August, in a highly symbolic act, Putin visited Sarov, the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear program. Alongside him was his Chief of the General Staff, Gerasimov.

When Russian model Guzel Ganieva threatened Epstein's network in 2015, he turned to an unusual source: Sergei Belyakov, the FSB-trained official running Putin's St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

🧵Here's how Epstein worked with Putin's regime: Belyakov wasn't some rank and file official. He graduated from the FSB Academy in 1998 and embedded himself in Russia's economic elite.

Putin's "Christianity" at full display: a 63-year-old pastor sentenced for preaching peace.

Nikolai Romanyuk called war a sin and urged believers to refuse the draft.

🧵For this, a Russian court sentenced him to 4 years under laws against "threats to state security." The court convicted Romanyuk under Article 280.4 of Russia’s Criminal Code for public calls against state security. The conviction rested on a sermon he delivered in September 2022 and was published on the church's YouTube channel.

The United States is now Putin's deportation partner.

Russian political refugees who sought safety in the U.S. are being returned on charter flights. Upon return, they face hours-long interrogations by security services.

🧵Here's what is known about the latest flight: On August 27, at least 30 Russian citizens were deported from the United States back to Russia. According to Dmitry Valuyev, president of Russian America for Democracy in Russia, most were asylum seekers who had fled political persecution. theins.ru/en/news/284453

I spent 10 years in Putin's prisons for the crime of political participation. Now he's counseling Trump about "rigged" elections.

🧵It's not my business to tell Americans how to conduct elections, but taking Putin's advice here is like taking fire safety tips from an arsonist When Putin came to power, Russia had real elections. They were imperfect, but they were real. Independent TV covered opposition candidates and challenged the official narrative. Political donations didn’t get anyone in trouble. Governors answered to voters of their respective regions, not Moscow.

That was the democracy I believed in and invested in. Then the full-scale destruction began: Putin seized NTV, then TV-6, then Izvestia. I watched it happen and thought markets would resist. They didn't. wapo.st/3JxlBzv

Without truly independent media, the opposition became invisible. You can't win elections when voters can’t hear your message. Putin understood this perfectly.

Everyone asks if Putin is winning.

Wrong question. He's won for himself while losing for Russia.

🧵Let me explain Putin is under pressure. Economic and recruitment problems are mounting, and the occupied territories are becoming an enormous burden. Contrary to popular belief, he has plenty of reasons to negotiate

3.5 million people went to sleep in Ukraine and may wake up in Russia, depending on what happens in Alaska today.

Those who resisted may face prosecution. Those who fled lose everything.

🧵 What Putin brings to Alaska (read on) Another 200,000 people live directly along the contact line, their homes straddling what might become a permanent border. Their families are already split between two worlds.

It's not just Ukraine.

Russia's military intelligence hired a convicted killer to run 'economic conferences' in Kazakhstan — southern neighbor that refused to back Putin's war.

What @dossier_center uncovered: In late 2022, Colonel Denis Smolyaninov, a senior officer in the GRU’s Special Activities Service (Russian military intelligence), received a plan for influence operations in northern Kazakhstan

Russian sixth-grader Masha Moskaleva drew an anti-war picture at school. Her father went to prison for it.

🧵They escaped Russia and applied for German protection. Germany said no. It began with a child's drawing in 2022. Rather than seeing a child's expression, her school principal saw sedition in it and reported it to the police. This immediately activated the repressive state machinery.

Some analysts still quote Dmitry Medvedev's war threats as if they mean anything.

🧵Let me explain why the former president's social media rants deserve pity, not serious analysis. I knew several good people who were completely transformed by excessive alcohol consumption. Dmitry Medvedev was first changed by fear, then by the alcohol he used to treat that fear.

Europe just welcomed Russia's #3 official—the woman who personally signed off on invading Ukraine—to a conference in Geneva.

While ordinary Russians can't get tourist visas, sanctioned war enablers flew freely through EU airspace.

🧵So... who is Valentina Matviyenko? Matviyenko ranks third in Russia's hierarchy after Putin and Prime Minister Mishustin. She's been speaker of the Federation Council since 2011 and a permanent member of Putin's Security Council.

He orchestrated the annexation of Crimea. He predicts NATO's death. He funds European extremists and works with expelled Russian spies.

Right now, he's in Geneva as a legitimate "parliamentarian"

🧵 Here’s what you should know about Leonid Slutsky The 6th World Conference of Parliament Speakers is happening in Geneva under the theme of "parliamentary cooperation for peace, justice and prosperity."

Russia sent 10 delegates, led by the speaker of the Russian Senate Valentina Matvienko. Most in the delegation are under Western sanctions.

Russian military came to collect deserter Semyon Subbotin from Armenian custody and haul him back to fight in Ukraine — local police saw them and drove him to safety instead.

🧵It's a commendable decision that shows how isolated Putin's regime has become Subbotin had fled military service and was wanted in Russia for “unauthorized abandonment of a military unit”, or in other words, refusing to take part in the illegal war