Zaluzhnyi writes:

How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit
^{— Valerii Zaluzhnyi · Defense One · Apr 10, 2025}

War gear is for anyone to own.
And, in the US, head over to Walmart, pick up ammo, and you have what you need to make your own drone attack force.

NATO has missed the drone revolution
^{— Anders Puck Nielsen · Logic of War · Apr 18, 2025}

It seems possible that Trump will support a peace plan that heavily favours Russia; that Zelenskyy and the Europeans will reject it as unfair (Trump has already said that not invading the whole of Ukraine was 'a concession' on the part of Russia); Trump will then accuse Zelenskyy of 'scuttling the peace plan' and the US will wash its hands of the situation, leaving Ukraine and the European Union to fight on alone. We'll see, but I suspect we won't be waiting long to find out.

Where are the pro-Russians? Where are the experts of propaganda, morality, military, economics, geopolitics criticizing the European lapdogs and the Great Satan? Those who have predicted everything since day one?
Russia is getting everything from the US and Ukraine has lost since day one, Putin has achieved all his goals the same ones he had since the beginning of the war, Zelensky is a catastrophic corrupt clownish American-lapdog looser whom all Ukrainians hate. Why is Putin not stopping this fucking war?

Europe’s Defense Spending Puzzle Can Pay Huge Dividends
^{— Nathan Decety · Res Publica · Apr 23, 2025}

Europe is behind, except perhaps in some hybrid warfare.^† Ukraine is ahead in some areas (e.g. above). The Baltics and Poland are a bit nervous.

^{† caveat: it's easier for Russian operatives/propagandists to go to Europe and do something, than for operatives/propagandists to do much in Russia}

Trump issues rare rebuke for Putin after Kyiv attacks
^{— Karl Sexton, Timothy Jones · DW et al · Apr 24, 2025}
'He's just tapping me along' — Trump admits Putin may not be interested in ending war on Ukraine
^{— Martin Fornusek · The Kyiv Independent · Apr 26, 2025}

Is Trump finally growing a spine? One might hope, though I wouldn't hold my breath.

Trump is notorious for echoing what the last person who impressed him has said. Obviously, Zelenskyy impressed something on him in that impromptu meeting at the Vatican (a portentious setting if ever there was one.) If only Trump could grasp the fact - obvious to everyone except him, it seems - that Putin doesn't want 'peace', he wants to conquer Ukraine, or at least come away with enough for him to claim he has to his country.

But overall, a better outcome than Trump walking away muttering about 'that dictator Zelenskyy'. Let's hope it sticks.

I kind of dismissed this at first, but it seems to hold up, though it's unclear to what extent.

Russia is ‘recycling’ wounded troops, sending some to the frontline on crutches
^{— Nick Paton Walsh, Darya Tarasova, Kosta Gak · CNN · Feb 22, 2025}

Aren't there laws or something against that?

North Korean Deployment in Kursk: A Window into the DPRK Military
^{— Lorenzo Fedrigo · Geopolitical Monitor · Mar 21, 2025}
Vladimir Putin signs decree calling up 160,000 Russians for military service
^{— Euronews · Mar 31, 2025}

The issue of Crimea's ownership has been resolved, Russia is not negotiating the integrity of its territory, Trump understands this, said Sergey Lavrov
^{— Zvezda via ZOV Mariupol News Feed · Apr 27, 2025 · 1m:11s}

So said Lavrov. (Or will Trump reconsider?)

Chinese coast guard says it seized sandbank in the South China Sea amid land tussle with the Philippines
^{— AFP/Reuters via ABC (Australia) · Apr 27, 2025}

Well, why not? Why couldn't China grab the island, when Putin seems to have gotten away with grabbing Crimea (in Trump and Lavrov's eyes at least)?

Directed youth militarization in Russia isn't new.

▸ Russia's youngest cadets (— CBS · Apr 23, 2014)

They've stepped up these efforts.

▸ How Russia Prepares Children In Occupied Ukraine For War Against Their Own Country (— RFE/RL · Dec 3, 2024)
▸ Extraction (— Jade McGlynn, Illia Riepin · Feb 11, 2025)
▸ Is Putin’s brainwashing of Ukrainians into Russians even a crime? (— The Economist · Feb 21, 2025)
▸ Russia’s forcible deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children (— Bergen Global CMI/UiB · Feb 21, 2025 · 1h:55m:2s)
▸ The children of Severomorsk are told that neighbouring Nordic countries support Nazism (— The Barents Observer · Apr 15, 2025)
▸ Teaching children to march and shoot: Russians prepare children in Mariupol for war with Ukraine (— Mariupol City Council / UNN · Apr 18, 2025)

Insidious.

More on Russia signalling goodwill for peace and cooperation with Europe:
https://kyivindependent.com/shoigu-threatens-europe-with-nuclear-weapons-if-russia-is-faced-with-unfriendly-actions/
https://tass.com/politics/1948611

More on the European nazis and American lapdogs provoking peaceful Russia:
https://en.belsat.eu/86255589/russian-intelligence-service-suggests-us-and-russia-fight-eurofascism-together

, they've been trying to demonize (and divide) Europe for a while, all part of the playbook.

Incidentally, it goes well with Vance's Munich tirade. :chin:

Maybe someone should round up comparisons.


<sup>Soviet/Russian World War 2 poster


Soviet/Russian World War 2 drawing</sup>

:up:

Experts On Russia Say Donald Trump Is Wrong About The War In Ukraine
^{— Stuart Anderson · Forbes · Apr 27, 2025}

From the article ...

Russia’s threats to take over the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine go back to the times of Boris Yeltsin. Putin acted on those threats in 2003 trying to take over Ukraine’s Tuzla Island off the shores of the Crimea. The annexation of the Crimea in 2014 was explained by the threat from NATO, which allegedly planned to establish naval bases on the peninsula. In reality, it was a response to the Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and determination to sign an association agreement with the European Union. By launching a war on Ukraine, Russia was not stopping NATO, which had refused to admit the country back in 2008, but was precluding the ‘escape’ of a former imperial subject from Russia’s sphere of influence. — Serhii Plokhy

Trump’s contention that Ukraine’s hope of joining NATO ‘caused the war to start’ is a claim that is often made, but one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Given that there was no serious prospect of Ukraine joining NATO between 2008 and 2022, it’s hard to see how Ukraine’s hope of joining NATO at some point in the future caused the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. Nothing had happened in the previous 14 years to make it likely that Ukraine could join NATO anytime soon. I think most specialists on Russia and Ukraine agree that Putin’s key motive for the full-scale invasion was his desire to restore Russian political control over Ukraine—it wasn’t about this or that piece of territory. This reflects Putin’s oft-stated belief that Ukraine is not a separate nation and that it is an artificial state. Putin was motivated by imperial ideas about Ukraine, not by any fears of a security threat to Russia from NATO. It’s worth noting that Russia has literally thousands of nuclear weapons to deter an attack on Russian territory. It’s also worth noting that Putin seems untroubled by Finland joining NATO in 2023, even though they share a lengthy land border. In fact, Russia has moved troops away from the Finnish border to fight in Ukraine. — Brian Taylor

Putin hasn’t taken Ukraine because he can’t. To suggest ‘not taking all of Ukraine’ is a Russian concession is ludicrous. — Mick Ryan

The front line is not about to collapse. Despite AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] being largely pressed out of Kursk, the overall situation from Pokrovsk to Kupyansk improved. The implication being that Ukraine is not in a desperate situation requiring a rushed ceasefire under unfavorable terms. — Michael Kofman

Drones have indeed transformed the battlefield in Ukraine by providing accessible and affordable capabilities at a scale that did not previously exist. They are making it difficult to concentrate forces, achieve surprise and conduct offensive operations. — Stacie Pettyjohn

Following last night’s brutal assault on Kyiv, it’s clear Putin has no interest in peace. Time to answer Russia’s ongoing invasion in Ukraine with renewed American strength and give our ally the military support they need to win a victory for freedom.USUA https://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-launches-massive-deadly-strike-kyiv-ukrainian-authorities/story?id=121113739 — Mike Pence · Apr 24, 2025

As always, the Donald is immune to reason. He's besotted with 'strong man' Putin, that explains practically all there is to know. And he lacks the insight into his own emotions to acknowledge or understand it. He's like a goofy lovestruck teenager when it comes to Putin.

But on a more positive note, Ukraine has agreed to sign the minerals deal. Presumably, now that Trump (or anyway America) has a financial stake in Ukraine, this can be used to leverage military support - to protect their joint asset.

The deal will establish the “United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” which will allow the “two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery,” Bessent said in a statement. — WaPo

Smart move by Zelenskyy, I think.

Russia's next move? The countries trying to Putin-proof themselves
^{— Katya Adler · BBC · Mar 20, 2025}

Theiner speculates away, yet, the Baltic folks have understandably become a bit nervous:

Russia will not attack unless Putin could occupy all the Baltic countries in two or three days. Today he might be able to do this. If the Germans, French, Italians, British, Spanish, Canadians moved their army to the Baltic countries, he will not be able to do it. If Putin sees that Europeans are too weak, he will attack. — Thomas Theiner

↪neomac, they've been trying to demonize (and divide) Europe for a while, all part of the playbook.

Incidentally, it goes well with Vance's Munich tirade. :chin: — jorndoe

Which is just continuing.

US Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused Germany of rebuilding a "Berlin Wall" after action against the far-right AfD party, the latest heated criticism of the longtime ally by President Donald Trump's administration.

"The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt -- not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment," Vance, who in February defiantly met the AfD leader while in Munich, wrote on X.

And not only Vance, but Rubio too:

(CNN 2nd May, 2025) A remarkable exchange played out on X on Friday as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the government of key ally Germany of “tyranny in disguise” for designating the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist entity.

In a post Friday afternoon, the top US diplomat slammed the classification made by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which allows it to increase surveillance of the political party. Vice President JD Vance later echoed the rebuke of the move in his own post on the social media platform. “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition,” Rubio wrote on his official State Department X account. “That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.”

“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” he continued. Rubio, who has been newly tapped as the interim national security adviser, said the US ally “should reverse course.”

In a direct reply on X more than three hours later, the German Foreign Office pushed back. “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law,” the account posted. “It is independent courts that will have the final say.”

“We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped,” the foreign office wrote.

I'm usually pretty critical when some European party is marked as being far-right or extremist, but with the "Alternative for Germany" AfD, it's quite obvious and I totally agree with the German domestic intelligence service, the BfV, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. When a political party starts segregating citizens of the country on the base of their race or ethnicity and wants to sent somewhere away German citizens, that is a clearly a threat to democracy. There's no way to look away from that. That AfD leader Weidel used the term remigration, a term popularized in the German-speaking world by Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner, which refers to forcibly removing immigrants who refuse to integrate with German culture, regardless of their citizenship status, isn't just an error. The AfD leadership had met Sellner himself and afterward used the term. And there's many incidents to show just how neo-nazi many in the leadership of the party are.



Perhaps the US should btw need a Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution?

Predictable.

Russian networks flood the Internet with propaganda, aiming to corrupt AI chatbots
^{— Annie Newport, Nina Jankowicz · Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists · Mar 26, 2025}

Hristoulas argues that Putin's plans can be traced back to 2005 ...

Empire and Revenge: Outlining Vladimir Putin’s Motivations for War (html)
^{— Athanasios Hristoulas · ITAM · May 2023}

Ferraro argues that Putin primarily had domestic motives ...

Why Russia invaded Ukraine and how wars benefit autocrats: The domestic sources of the Russo-Ukrainian War (alternate)
^{— Vicente Ferraro · University of São Paulo · Dec 28, 2023}

Also that political instability in the US and the rise of Trump has weakened the NATO alliance and brought into question it’s existence and commitments to article 5. Enabling Putin to conclude that NATO won’t respond to the invasion of Ukraine and may fracture and become divided. While the U.S. will become consumed by internal instability.

That Putin’s hold on power was becoming weak and the distraction of war was needed. To galvanise his hold on power and create the myth that he was a strong leader and necessary to protect the integrity of Russia.

He found an ally in Trump who admired his authoritarian status and would give legitimacy to Putin’s anti European rhetoric.

So in a very real sense this whole geopolitical crisis is a joint venture between Trump and Putin. Even while Trump might not be cognisant of the fact.

End of the war speculation ...

When the war ends, Putin has a problem (archived)
^{— Philip Piatov, Paul Ronzheimer · Bild · May 5, 2025}
Putin’s endgame in Ukraine – and why it won’t finish there
^{— Sam Kiley · Independent · May 5, 2025}

For what it's worth, end of war seems a good pretext to ease up on sanctions.

More on peaceful Russia signaling good will to EU to be the laughing third while China and the US are beating each other to death: https://united24media.com/latest-news/zelenskyy-russia-amassing-up-to-150000-troops-in-belarus-for-training-5893
Sorry, Great Satan but not sorry.

(Meanwhile in Poland: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/04/30/poland-promises-appropriate-response-to-russian-military-exercises-in-belarus/)

Ukraine arrests two over alleged Hungarian spy plot
^{— Frank Gardner, Jessica Rawnsley · BBC · May 9, 2025}
Ukraine expels 2 Hungarian diplomats over alleged espionage. Budapest responds in a tit-for-tat move
^{— Justin Spike, Illia Novikov · AP · May 9, 2025}

What's the deal anyway? Well, the EU and NATO, of which Hungary is a member, are Ukraine's allies. Despite being bombed daily, Ukraine is reforming towards EU membership. Say, you may have Spanish and Swedish intelligence folks in Ukraine, that the Ukrainians know, who talk now and then, with no particular reason for dis/mistrust, all part of a network. But not Orbán's Hungary. They have more or less befriended the invaders of Ukraine, Putin's Russia, instead, and can now be suspected informants, feeding the Kremlin intelligence. Consequences could extend throughout EU- and NATO-related intelligence networks, but perhaps more will come out about what happened.

Robert Francis Prevost (now Pope Leo XIV) once said in 2022:
It is a very serious problem that is affecting the entire world. There are many analyses of the conflict, of the war that is currently taking place in Ukraine, but from my point of view it is a true imperialist invasion, where Russia wants to conquer a territory for reasons of power, and well, Russia's own advantage due to the issue of strategic location as well as the great value of what Ukraine is culturally, as well as historically and also in production for Russia. Crimes against humanity are being committed, it has already been proven, there are crimes that are being committed in Ukraine. We must ask God a lot for peace, but I believe that we must be clearer too, even some politicians in our country do not want to recognize the horrors of this war and the evil that Russia is carrying out in all its actions there in Ukraine.
source: https://www.outono.net/elentir/2025/05/11/the-words-of-robert-prevost-the-new-pope-leo-xiv-on-the-invasion-of-ukraine/

Matviichuk is on a mission. Maybe something will come of it.

Beyond rhetoric: Interrogating the Eurocentric critique of international criminal law’s selectivity in the wake of the 2022 Ukraine invasion
^{— Patryk I Labuda · Leiden Journal of International Law · Jun 6, 2023}
Evidence - SDIR (44-1) - No. 52 - House of Commons of Canada
^{— SDIR · House of Commons, Canada · Jun 4, 2024}
Foundations laid for tribunal to try Putin for Ukraine invasion, EU says
^{— Jennifer Rankin · Guardian · Feb 4, 2025}
Create 'aggression' tribunal for Ukraine now: Nobel Peace winner
^{— Anthony Deutsch · Reuters · Feb 23, 2025}
There is no peace without justice: High-level event on holding Russia accountable for its crimes in Ukraine
^{— Council of the European Union · Mar 27, 2025}
Today, representatives of about 40 countries publicly announced the creation of a special tribunal on the crime of aggression within the Council of Europe. [...]
^{— Oleksandra Matviichuk · May 9, 2025}

Watch out for polonium, though. And Novichok. And balconies.

Reports of youth militarization (like above) and ...

A glimpse inside Putin’s secret arms empire
^{— The Economist · May 8, 2025}

... indicate that Putin doesn't have peace in mind.
No one has suggested marching on Moscow (which seems like madness in any case); the Kremlin has something else in mind.
More European adventures?

Bosnia: Moscow’s Second Front in Europe
^{— Stephen Blank · CEPA · May 7, 2025}

Some European countries have reacted, ramping up capabilities.
I'm guessing that some concerted efforts are required to avoid (minimize) further instability.

Here is my informal syllogism:
If Russia has won, Russia can impose their conditions unilaterally on the losers. It didn't happen yet.
If Russia wants peace, Russia is in the most favorable conditions to get peace, given Trump's attitude. It didn't happen yet. So Russia didn't win nor it wants peace, yet.

More on peaceful Russia provoked by warmongering Finnish Nazis as humpa lumpas of the US Blob, forcing Russia to prepare against imminent NATO aggression:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/world/europe/russia-finland-border.html

Rumors on the street will have it that, due to sanctions, Russia can no longer produce Beriev A-50 and A-100, and maintenance has more or less halted.