Don't just get mad. Get busy. 1-Donate u24.gov.ua/ 2-Shop shop.brave.ua/ 3-Call your MP 1x/wk & demand more support for #Ukraine 4-Contact 🇺🇦 groups in your area & ask how you can help 5-MOBILIZE at least 5 ppl you know to do 1-5 💙💛 6-Keep going 😎💪

🇵🇱🇺🇸 POLAND WINS EUROPE'S PATRIOT MISSILE MAINTENANCE HUB Poland has beaten Germany, the Netherlands and Norway to host a major new European servicing facility for Lockheed Martin's PAC-3 Patriot interceptors. Key details: • Investment: ~PLN 1 billion ($253 million). • Expected to become operational in roughly 12–18 months. • It will be the first facility of its kind outside the US. • Will handle repairs, refurbishment and re-certification of PAC-3 interceptors. Why does this matter? European Patriot operators currently have to send interceptors across the Atlantic for servicing. According to Polish defence outlet Defence24, the new facility could potentially reduce maintenance turnaround times from many months to just weeks. With interceptor stocks under enormous pressure from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, this could significantly improve NATO's air-defence readiness. Poland also hopes the facility could eventually pave the way for domestic PAC-3 MSE production. A major victory for Poland's defence industry - and an important step towards a more resilient European air-defence supply chain.

That’s a lot of wanker packed into one headline

BREAKING: 🇷🇴🇷🇺 Romania’s intelligence service (SRI) has uncovered a Russian intelligence-directed sabotage network involved in a fire at the Carfil military industrial platform in Brașov, Romania, on September 14. According to the SRI, the network was coordinated from Russia and involved several citizens of former Soviet states living in EU countries. Judicial proceedings are underway in Romania and in cooperation with authorities in other European countries. Investigators say Russian coordinators had assigned the network additional targets across the region, including arms factories and other military and industrial facilities. The SRI also identified other sabotage attempts in Romania this year, including at facilities used to train Ukrainian armed forces. Romanian authorities say the operations aim to intimidate European countries, damage their defence capabilities and undermine regional security. The investigation is ongoing, with Romanian intelligence working alongside national agencies and European partners.

NATO accepts, on the condition that Russia push back to its 1462 borders and clear out troops and equipment from countries along NATO’s borders.

Who oh who could it be?

Exactly this. Whenever Moscow conquers a country, it is impoverished, polluted and destroyed. This is what happened to Estonia's economy (compared to Finland) during the Soviet Occupation. Estonia was wealthier than Finland in 1938, the Soviet occupation (1944-1991) turned it 10 times poorer. Since freedom from the Russians was achieved, it's back on track.

'Today, after nearly five years of war, and 22 months of the second Trump administration, the mental map guiding Russian strategy has changed. First, Russia now sees Europe, instead of the United States, as its principal geopolitical adversary, a shift that has driven Russia’s defense establishment to call for an approach known as “castling” to deal with the main threats. Related to this, Moscow now attributes new strategic agency to Europe itself because of the dramatic military modernization taking place in many European countries and the growing interest among some European leaders in developing or extending their own nuclear deterrent. A third shift concerns Russia’s theory of deterrence: Moscow’s traditional understanding of nuclear coercion is giving way to new thinking about nonnuclear strategic deterrence using advanced conventional weapons systems aimed at Europe. ... One of the most notable trends in Russian strategic thought over the past year has been the emergence of the idea of “castling.” A term borrowed from chess, castling in geopolitics describes the repositioning of forces and resources to optimize a state’s strategic posture. Moscow’s defense experts have used the concept to describe a strategy for dealing with a new reality: for the first time since World War II, they have argued, Europe, rather than the United States, has become Russia’s principal geopolitical adversary. According to this view, European countries are now the principal source of Ukraine’s military capacity, political resolve, and strategic resilience; it is Europe and not the United States that has made Ukraine its proxy and is encouraging Kyiv to pursue Moscow’s strategic defeat. As a consequence, Moscow must direct coercive pressure at Europe—its elites, its decision-making centers, and its critical infrastructure. By doing so, Russia can instill into Europe’s calculus what theorists in Moscow call a “deterring fear”: a European reluctance to antagonize Russia through further support to Ukraine. Such action, they argue, can also rebuild Russian credible deterrence for long-term competition with the West, which is now centered on Europe. .... Drawing on this experience, Russian military theoreticians center NNSD on using massive, deep, precision strikes against the adversary’s critical military, political, and economic infrastructure. The strategy, they suggest, should be aimed not only at Ukraine but also at its European supporters. Although the exact contours of NNSD are still emerging, the concept appears to be more escalatory than the hybrid warfare and deniable asymmetric campaigns that Russia is currently pursuing in Europe.'

“Dear Italian students, who today take to the streets carrying flags with the hammer and sickle and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ‘CCCP’,” began an open letter in Italian by Lithuanian expat Neringa Budryt. “I would like to ask you a question: do you truly know what the symbols you carry represent? And do you know what would have happened to many of you had you openly demonstrated in countries living under the oppression of communist regimes? Let me tell you something. It is easy to display a red flag when, for you, communism is merely an abstract idea of equality, social justice, and rebellion against the system. It is easy to wear a T-shirt with "CCCP" on it when you have never experienced the reality of a communist regime. We come from that part of Europe where communism was not a T-shirt, a symbol of rebellion, or a romanticized notion of equality. It was the system in which we lived—a system we never chose. We know the history of Soviet repression, Stalinist purges, the Gulags, and mass deportations. Above all, we know the word "Siberia"—a place to which thousands of innocent people were forcibly deported, simply for thinking differently. In Siberia—amidst freezing cold, starvation, and forced labor—many lost their lives; those who survived carried the scars of that experience forever. Entire families were torn apart, and generations were denied the chance to live freely in their own homeland. In the countries of the Soviet bloc, censorship, political police, surveillance, and the suppression of dissent drastically curtailed individual freedoms. We grew up in a system where state control permeated even our daily lives. At school, we were required to wear the red necktie of the "Pioneers." We were monitored; they tracked where we went and even whether we attended church. Even faith—a choice that should belong to an individual’s own conscience—could become a cause for suspicion. We used to celebrate Christmas with our windows blacked out, to ensure no one would see us and report us. Because it was forbidden—just like so many other things: jeans, rock music, and all the symbols of a Western lifestyle. My mother returned from a Soviet labor camp. And do you know what happened to her? She was barred from continuing her education because she had been labeled an enemy of communism. Under a communist regime, you could not protest. You risked arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, persecution—and, in certain historical contexts, even death. In the Soviet Union and other communist regimes, political dissent could cost you your freedom and your life. Demonstrations independent of the authorities were not a guaranteed right; they were often suppressed by force. That is why it strikes me to see young Italians proudly displaying the hammer and sickle—symbols associated with regimes that persecuted and imprisoned millions of people. Today, you are free to take to the streets, shout against the government, criticize institutions, and wave your flags precisely because you live in a democracy that grants you these freedoms. Under an authoritarian regime of that kind, protesting against those in power could have landed you in prison. This is not about denying the existence of social injustices, inequalities, or the right to fight for a better world. You are free to take to the streets to demand a more just society—but you should not idealize a system that denied so many people the very things you are free to exercise today: the right to choose, to believe, to speak, and to dissent. Before wearing a T-shirt with "CCCP" on it, listen to those who experienced that world. Talk to the deportees and their descendants; read the accounts of those who endured the gulags and forced exile to Siberia. Learn what it meant to be stripped of your freedom, your home, your loved ones—and even any prospect of a normal life—simply because of your background or your beliefs. Before waving the hammer and sickle, please, study history thoroughly.”

A European coalition should deploy air defences in at least western Ukraine right now, instead of waiting for more Russian missiles and drones to strike. Isn’t enough enough already?

Germany is running out of refineries, and it now admits that’s a problem. Economy Minister Katherina Reiche: “Whoever loses the refinery loses not only the supply for the gas station, but above all for the chemical complex.” Berlin now says it wants to stop more refineries closing. Look at the timing. Shell stopped processing crude at its 140,000 b/d Wesseling refinery last year. BP’s 250,000 b/d Gelsenkirchen has been up for sale since early 2025 with no buyer. Scotland lost Grangemouth, 150,000 b/d. Europe chose to import its diesel and jet fuel. Now the imports are the problem. Russian diesel exports hit a decade low. Gulf fuel exports run at about half of normal. US diesel costs about twice a barrel of crude. On Friday Germany’s stockpiling agency EBV put out a tender to sell diesel, heating oil and crude from its strategic reserves. In July it was still buying diesel to refill them. Germany’s reserve was meant for an emergency. It’s now dipping into it as winter starts. You can shut a refinery in a year. Building one takes most of a decade.

Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela was negotiated in secret. Now we know why. The contract just leaked, and it doesn’t say what Trump says it says.  What it does say is that we bought 35 percent of a company for a penny a share. The company is run by Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan businessman who’s been investigated for money laundering in Switzerland, Spain, and the United States. DOJ officials reportedly asked foreign governments to close those investigations and let him travel. The parent company is registered through a Barbados shell, so nobody can see who the other owners are. Any dispute goes to a court in Texas. One person involved said it was built to insulate the deal from future administrations. The company pumps about 200,000 barrels a day. America burns through that in 15 minutes. If this were a good deal, they wouldn’t have had to hide it. I break it all down in today’s show (link in reply).

The @GOP must be thrilled that 11 days before elections, we learn that the Trump family secretly orchestrated a deal to allow Russians to drill Alaska in exchange for a $25 billion "investment" funneled through their proxies.

❗️The US and Russia discussed the Polar Train LNG gas project in Alaska in exchange for easing sanctions on Arctic LNG-2, according to the FT. According to former CEO Joel Riddle, the Russian company Novatek funded the project and set its strategic direction even before receiving the necessary US permits; he left in September over fears of sanctions violations, after which almost the entire top management resigned. The FT reviewed correspondence in which a Novatek manager discusses funding the project and speeding up transfers. The project was launched with the participation of investor Gentry Beach, linked to the Trump family, and Tim Tokington, former head of Goldman Sachs’ Russian division, became acting CEO after Riddle.

And another. Trump isn’t just betraying Ukraine to the Kremlin, he’s selling out America too.

I finished reading Registration (2026), a novel by exiled Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky @glukhovsky. If you want to understand Russian literature in the 2020s, this is the book for you to read. Glukhovsky’s Registration is probably the most talked-about Russian novel of the year, despite not being sold at Russian bookshops. The Russian state designated Glukhovsky as a “ foreign agent” in 2022 and sentenced him - in absentia - to eight years in prison in 2023 for his anti-war public statements. Instead, the author released the novel online for free, making it accessible to readers inside and outside Russia. It has sparked an extraordinary wave of discussion, although reliable readership figures are unavailable as of yet. And this is the case for a good reason: Registration is a bleak, disturbing and politically charged portrait of contemporary Russia - a society in which war has become not just a national undertaking but an economic opportunity, and where moral boundaries are increasingly blurred by greed, fear and opportunism. The story centres on a young pregnant woman from the impoverished Vologda region in northern Russia, desperate to marry her boyfriend, a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine, to secure access to the financial benefits available to military families. His mother has competing interests, turning what should be an intimate family drama into a ruthless struggle over money. Through this premise, Glukhovsky exposes the grotesque economic incentives created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, particularly in poorer provincial communities, where military service offers one of the few opportunities for substantial financial advancement - and where a soldier’s death can become more financially rewarding to his relatives than his survival. Russian economic geographer Natalia Zubarevich calls Russian military widows “town-forming enterprises” as she points to the fact how they reshape economic realities on the ground in the Russian provinces. The novel’s greatest strength lies in its portrayal of the moral degradation and profound atomisation of Russian society. Glukhovsky paints a country where social solidarity has largely disintegrated, interpersonal trust is nearly non-existent, and individuals are left to navigate an increasingly brutal system on their own. Even family relationships, supposedly the last refuge of mutual support in any society, have become transactional, poisoned by competition over money and state benefits. His characters are not particularly sympathetic, but that is precisely the point: they embody a society in which individual survival, material gain and moral indifference have displaced collective responsibility and empathy. This atomisation also helps explain the apparent paradox of contemporary Russia: widespread private dissatisfaction can coexist with political passivity, as people remain isolated, distrustful of one another and incapable of collective resistance. Effectively, Registration is an indictment of the society sustaining the war against Ukraine. Unlike Glukhovsky’s dystopian fiction, its horror requires no imaginary future: it emerges from the realities of present-day Russia. The contrast between the poverty of the provinces and the enormous sums the state is prepared to pay for men - both Russian and foreign - to enlist and take part in its war makes the story particularly unsettling. Glukhovsky suggests that the war is not merely destroying Ukrainian cities and Russian lives but further corroding the social and moral fabric of Russia itself. The novel offers little hope of redemption: its bleakest insight is that a deeply atomised society, in which people increasingly see one another as competitors rather than fellow citizens, may be particularly vulnerable to authoritarian manipulation and prolonged militarisation. When people adopt a “dog-eat-dog” mentality, society sets itself on a path towards self-destruction.

The only thing surprising about this is that he got caught.

The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…

Perhaps Mr. Musk should stop reminding the world that his super intelligence is artificial.