Nice story in @DelfiEE on how Russia paid young "protestors" 1,000 rubles (10 euros) each to stand outside eleven embassies of EU nations in Moscow before the May 9th parade: delfi.ee/artikkel/12037… Payments were likely made with mobile app transfer on-site after the event. A list of those who responded to calls in chat groups was compiled so that the police would know whom not to detain. Screenshots not in the article below but shown to me demonstrate this fee-for-service arrangement:

I've been emphasizing lately the unintended consequences of Trump's headlong embrace of Russia -- consequences not wholly undesirable for Russia. While it's wonderful for Moscow to see an American president so eager to realign with Russia's strategic interests, and so keen to denigrate and alienate American allies in that re-alignment, smarter figures in the Kremlin realize the hazards of such an embarrassment of riches. A helpful constant in this administration's rush to give Putin everything all at once is that the worst capitulationist ideas are being stress-tested in the media and in the GOP almost as soon as they're invented -- and often *before* the Trump administration has agreed on whether or not they're feasible. One of ideas these is that the U.S. will recognize Crimea as Russian territory. As you might expect, this was Steve Witkoff's proposal, which is to say it was Vladimir Putin's. Dim Philby isn't so much an envoy as an unblinking relay of Putin's maximalist demands, all of which he presents to Trump as eminently reasonable, if not accomplished facts. (Recall Witkoff's lie that Russia was in full control of the Ukrainian regions it "annexed," regions Witkoff doesn't know the names of, when it is in full control of none of them.) The "Krym Nash" brain fart, I'm told, happened without any inter-agency coordination or buy-in from the principals, least of all Marco Rubio, who is at odds with Witkoff on this and on much else, regardless of the flattering tweets he is obliged to post about his scandalous colleague. Now notice this little nuance in the WSJ story cited above:

America's "washing its hands" of Ukraine-Russia talks can mean several things. First and foremost, it would mean ending this Witkoff/Rubio fandango to attain (or impose) a Russia-favorable peace deal of some kind, which reportedly would include de facto ceding occupied territory to Moscow. But what else does an American walk-away entail? Some unresolved questions below: 1. It is a near certainty that no additional military aid packages will come from this administration once the Biden-era ones run out. But does that mean Trump will refuse to sell weapons and ammunition directly or indirectly to Ukraine? Does it mean he will actively slap end user restrictions on European countries from buying American kit for the express purpose of donating it to Ukraine? (Even Rubio alluded to Ukraine's right to bilateral agreements with other countries.)

Right now, Germany continues to supply Kyiv with Patriot missiles. Long-range air defense is one of three critical areas in security assistance where Europe cannot yet compensate for the absence of American platforms, the other two being rocket artillery and howitzer ammunition. So new European aid packages featuring U.S.-made hardware seriously matter. Does Trump's pivot to Moscow include his limiting U.S. arms exports to Europe, something that would grievously harm the American arms industry beyond the harm Trump already inflicted on it with his attacks on transatlanticism, NATO, etc.? Between 2020 and 2024, Europe overtook the Middle East as the largest region for U.S. arms exports for the first time in two decades. Now, this government is clearly not above economic own goals, but it'll nonetheless be interesting to see how it sells a new dawn with Russia -- one without a concomitant peace -- as the price worth paying for crippling the American military-industrial complex.

There is zero fucking chance this was "unclassified." theatlantic.com/politics/archi… "This is when the first bombs will definitely drop."

Excellent analysis by Kiel Institute. Some conclusions track with what @JimmySecUK wrote for @newlinesmag here: newlinesmag.com/argument/can-e… “To replace US aid flows and keep total support at the same level: Europe needs to double its yearly support to an average level of 0.21% of GDP. This is less than half of what Denmark and the Baltics are already doing and on a level of what Poland and the Netherlands do.”

This is an excellent and timely factsheet on Ukraine, U.S. v. European security assistance, and other misunderstood or lied about aspects of the war, by our friends at @TheStudyofWar. I'll summarize a few main points below, with additional sources of my own: understandingwar.org/backgrounder/u… Russia's advances have slowed considerably in the last few months. It was taking, on average, 28 sq km per day in November; it took 16 sq km in January. Why is this? Russians are suffering severe manpower and equipment losses and Ukraine is causing them greater pain with its fleet of domestically sourced FPV drones, which now include fiber-optic wire-guided drones to evade electronic warfare. (Drones increasingly compensate for artillery shortages on the Ukrainian side.) Such is the state of Russia's army, its soldiers are now using donkeys to transport ammunition to the frontlines: independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…

New: After an eighteen-month investigation, @InsiderEng has uncovered new evidence suggesting that Russia’s GRU paid tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban in Afghanistan to target American, coalition, and Afghan military forces. GRU Unit 29155 was behind this operation. We have unmasked the officers and their Afghan agents. theins.ru/en/politics/27… The program, per four former Afghan intel (NDS) sources we queried, averaged $200,000 per killed American or coalition soldier. There were smaller allowances for killed Afghan troops. One former official estimated that Russia paid a total of approximately $30 million to the Taliban via the scheme.

New "Karl" thread, with @holger_r: 🧵 "The situation on the frontlines has not significantly changed in the last month. For UA, the most difficult area remains the southern part of the eastern front—Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. RU continues to advance there, but very slowly and at the cost of heavy losses."

Breaking: The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has released an unclassified report into the IC and its work on Havana Syndrome, or Anomalous Health Incidents. From the first lines of the executive summary: "It appears increasingly likely that a foreign adversary is behind some AHIs." Last March @InsiderEng and @60Minutes concluded a yearlong investigation pointing at evidence that Russian military intelligence -- specifically GRU Unit 29155 -- was likely behind AHI. You can read that here: theins.ru/en/politics/27…

The reporting on Ankara’s hand in all this will be necessary reading. turkishminute.com/2024/11/29/erd… Rare opportunity for the Tukrs here. IRGC/proxies are a busted flush. Russia is busy elsewhere, in a battle space where Erdogan has quietly armed the opposing side to rather impressive result (while not antagonizing VVP as other NATO allies have). Erdogan and Fidan are thoroughly and utterly fed up with Assad's BS on normalization.

New: Remember "Pablo Gonzalez," the GRU illegal traded back to Russia in August? He posed for years as a Spanish journalist. A #FreePablo campaign was undertaken by various press freedom organizations when he was arrested in Poland on charges of espionage. Well, guess who gave him a big old hug at Vnukovo Airport when Pablo touched down? This guy.👇 Oleg Sotnikov is a GRU officer and team member of Unit 26165, or "Fancy Bear," which is responsible for the 2016 DNC hack. He helped with the close access hacking of the OPCW in The Hague, and also anti-doping organizations, including USADA, for which he was indicted in District Court in PA. Sotnikov was consul in Rio during the Brazil Olympics in 2016, when over a hundred Russian athletes were caught cheating with performance enhancing drugs. Our story below: theins.ru/en/politics/27…

New "Karl" thread, the first since the U.S. election, with @holger_r: "RU is pushing hard on 2-3 fronts. On the Kursk front, they have managed to gain control over a third of the territory occupied by UA. I don’t see RU being able to push UA out of Kursk within this year or by the time Trump takes office on Jan 20. Their pace of progress is slow everywhere on the front."

New insights from "Karl," the Estonian military analyst, as told to @holger_r and me: 🧵 "Last time, we discussed that the situation near Vuhledar had become critical for UA. By now, it has been abandoned. In summary, RU's offensive toward Vuhledar began a year ago with an attack on Novomykhailivka. The situation in Vuhledar itself started to become uncomfortable a few months ago."

New "Karl" analysis on the latest in Ukraine, with @holger_r: 🧵 "In Kursk, the UA offensive developed further (since last time we spoke), and in total UA managed to conquer as much territory as RU had conquered in eastern Ukraine since the beginning of the year. This was done in the first 2 weeks of the operation."

DoJ announcing now: Cyber threat group Cadet Blizzard is Unit 29155. 📷Fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/g… More about them here and their use of justiceua[dot]org: microsoft.com/en-us/security…

Latest from "Karl," @holger_r's and my favorite Estonian military analyst, on developments in the war: "Let’s start with the situation on the eastern front as it is still the most painful and problematic for Ukraine. Russian pressure and forward movement toward Pokrovske and Toretsk continue there. Russia has very small daily advances there but it is still worrying that Ukraine hasn’t been able to put a stop to it."

The European Federation of Journalists is celebrating the release of "Pablo Gonzalez" and equating him with Evan Gershkovich and Vladimir Kara-Murza. This is not only ridiculous in light of the swap, it is dangerous. Gonzalez is a GRU operative whose real name is Pavel Rubtsov. He was detained by Polish intelligence in Feb. 2022. Short🧵europeanjournalists.org/blog/2024/08/0… According on leaked travel data obtained and reported on by @agents_media, Rubtsov traveled with GRU officer Sergei Turbin, who belongs to the service's Fifth Department, which handles GRU "illegals" (spies working outside of diplomatic cover). agents.media/sledivshij-za-…

NEW: @InsiderEng and its partners @lemondefr and @derspiegel have identified the French chef arrested on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence to disrupt the Paris Olympics. Meet Kirill Griaznov, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, reality TV star and FSB officer. We have his emails. Oh, and he's been to New York too! theins.press/en/politics/27… The Perm-born Griaznov has resided in France for 14 years. He only decided to become a chef suddenly in 2010 after years working as a lawyer for financial services companies. While in Luxembourg, he met Lord Robert Skidelsky, a British peer. He was very excited about this and wanted to meet Skidelsky again in Moscow. Skidelsky seemed keen.

NEW: With our partner @derspiegel, @InsiderEng has obtained a secret SVR plan -- "Operation Kylo" -- to weaken pro-Ukrainian sentiment in the West, using "fear," "panic" and "horror" as psycho-emotional triggers. theins.press/en/politics/27… The architect of this operation is a 20-year veteran of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Mikhail Kolesov. He acknowledges Russia's total failure in the propaganda war with the West since the full-scale invasion and proposes clever new active measures to undermine support for Ukraine.

New "Karl" thread on the latest Ukraine developments, with @holger_r: 🧵 "Since we last spoke in May, there haven’t been substantial changes on the frontline. Russia is still pressing but without remarkable results. The pressure is heaviest on the eastern front near Pokrovske, west from Avdiivka."

🧵 An interesting data set from a group of Western aviation experts, one of whom I'll quote in this short thread. Between May 3 and June 15, Russia dropped no fewer than 64 FAB glide bombs on… Belgorod, Russia. In other words, almost every day for a month and a half, Russia has been bombing itself. Not intentionally, of course. But why? There are several reasons.