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Apprentice Citizen

@apprenticeciti.bsky.social

Geopolitics Sustainability ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ https://www.apprenticecitizen.com

128 Followers  |  229 Following  |  161 Posts  |  Joined: 17.11.2024  |  2.1324

Latest posts by apprenticeciti.bsky.social on Bluesky

Three Russian Fighters Just Entered Estonian Air Space. What's Putin's Plan?
YouTube video by William Spaniel Three Russian Fighters Just Entered Estonian Air Space. What's Putin's Plan?

NATOโ€™s response wasnโ€™t slow. Perhaps it wasnโ€™t as kinetic as you fancied.

Putin is desperate to trigger a new mobilization. A kinetic hit is the perfect stage for him to call one. Without, itโ€™s too risky and heโ€™s stuck overpaying soldiers and starving his economy.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=DVzC...

08.10.2025 21:56 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Igor, you have good content, but rarely venture into opinionated speculations that have no sources nor credibility.

Do consider keeping those out, or marking them as opinion, to safeguard the quality of your feed.

24.09.2025 22:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Weak or wise?

Putin desperately needs a 2nd mobilization. His provocations attempt to trigger an accident. Heโ€™ll then fudge the accident and sell it Russians as their motherland being under attack, and start a mobilization.

Resolute defense neutralizes that.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=DVzC...

24.09.2025 22:32 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Any expert can state how long a downtime these attacks cause on the refinery?

Do they need to be repeated after a few days, or so they take the refinery down for weeks or months?

24.08.2025 20:32 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Spain went all out.

Thereโ€™s a smarter way when dealing with a prickly US president:

Buy F-35, just much less of them.
Build the fleet around non-US aircraft. Use few F-35 to supply situational awareness to the fleet

I expect many more countries to quietly leave distance from the IS that way

07.08.2025 21:10 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Here we go. Renowned journalists begin to be apologetic about expressing criticism, and doing so referring to โ€œpatriotismโ€.

I think of all Russian voices criticizing the war prefixing with how patriotic they are.

07.08.2025 20:52 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

How do we know, if this tech is so secretive, especially on the Chinese navy side?

01.08.2025 20:34 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Trump and von der Leyen announce US-EU trade deal Agreement includes 15% baseline tariff for most EU exports to US after deal reached at Scotland crunch talks

- 15% effective rate of tariffs. Was previously ~3%.

- EU commits to buy US energy 250$ billion/y for 3 years . 2024 purchases = 65$B. Hardly realistic

- $600 billion investment expected from a mix of public and private sector, mostly private.

- a high-level agreement with many points still open

28.07.2025 06:27 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Itโ€™s hard to understand calls for EU expansion, when the EUโ€™s biggest Achilles heel is its inability to get its current members to agree, ending up in paralysis or crawling speed on the vast majority of issues.

28.07.2025 06:03 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

The 28 May agreement

- focuses on long-range strike capabilities

- covers drones like AN-196, ballistic- and cruise missiles

- has ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช deliver financing in the hundreds of millions โ‚ฌ, and minor logistical support (eg satcom)

- takes pressure off the delivery of Taurus

Scarce details by policy

15.07.2025 21:52 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Design and early production were surely already complete.

German financing scaled it up to small scale production. Possibly know how too.

Producing in ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ enables lower cost, higher speed, and avoids criticism of โ€œescalationโ€

15.07.2025 21:27 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

The โ€œexcuseโ€ is that oil prices were high, sanctions would have raised them further, oil prices are decisive in elections, and Bidenโ€™s primary objective was to prevent Trumpโ€™s return.

Trump now enjoys low prices and minimal political risk.

Your recent posts increasingly sound like maga parlance

15.07.2025 20:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

@anderspucknielsen.dk expectation somewhat proved right.

- defensive systems confirmed in good numbers (17 patriots)
- offensive systems left unspecified and conditional
- no sanctions imposed, merely promised in 50 days time behind a bunch of further vague conditionals

Hardly a shocking package.

14.07.2025 18:37 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

- Cost: a SAMPTT battery costs $500 million, a missile $2M. A patriot battery 600-1B, a missile $4M-7M

- Mobility: SAMP/T deploys in 15โ€™, Patriot in 30โ€™

- Crew: SAMP/T ~14 people. Patriot ~90

- Patriot has capacity for more interceptors per battery, but thatโ€™s paid in larger size, crew, cost etc

11.07.2025 19:26 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Europeโ€™s air defence dilemma: can Franco-Italian system rival US Patriot? New SAMP-T system on display at Paris Air Show seeks buyers amid Europeโ€™s efforts to re-arm

If European countries donโ€™t buy Franco-Italian air defense systems now that 1) mistrust in the US reliability is at its peak 2) their European system is at its newest โ€” itโ€™s hard to believe it ever will grow any autonomy.

SAMP-T is cheaper, more flexible and easier to operate than PATRIOT, too.

11.07.2025 19:15 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Unemployment rate among veterans is growing: research shows The unemployment rate among Ukrainian veterans has risen to 30.95%. This is evidenced by the data of a survey presented by the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation.

Itโ€™s not hard to believe โ€” PTSD is widespread and companies are happy to stay clear of those cases.

In Ukraine things are unfortunately not that different:

veteranfund.com.ua/en/2024/02/1...

26.06.2025 04:56 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Why do all but one women dress light colors?

Is that a custom? Is there a meaning or special message?

25.06.2025 20:31 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Trump has 3 years and odds left.

Rutte must safeguard NATO until a stable US president comes in.

Rutte here shows je has understood perfectly his job and what language works on Trump.

24.06.2025 22:27 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
The Big Problem With NATO's New 5% Target
YouTube video by TLDR News EU The Big Problem With NATO's New 5% Target

A video on this would be great, @anderspucknielsen.dk .

@tldrnews.bsky.social posted a rudimentary comment today that increased spending is dumb without structural reform to reduce current waste.

Itโ€™d be great to hear needs, possibilities & plans for those structural reforms

youtu.be/udxtglKVrAc

24.06.2025 22:08 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

He does because he has not seen other presidents follow instincts.

Animals follow instincts. Presidents follow information, analysis and decision.

21.06.2025 15:14 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

@legaleagle.tv some material for you. Can ICE agents operate masked? When? When do they have to ID themselves? How can they be prosecuted?

21.06.2025 15:12 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

Are you sure, Mehdi?

Iran has historically had one: AMAD

The IAEA found strong evidence of Iran refining uranium to purities well beyond the needs of civilian use

And their stockpiling of uranium accelerated sharply since Israel disabled Hezbollah

www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

17.06.2025 05:48 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

US interests is not US bases. It encompasses for example investments by US companies in Jordan and UAE.

Hitting those doesnโ€™t necessarily trigger a major response from US military. It may destroy Iranian relationships with the respective country though.

16.06.2025 17:46 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Itโ€™s the stripes of the US flag โ€” on an โ€œincidentallyโ€ blue background.

The optics however are so blatant, the image ha either not been second-looked by anyone beyond the designer, or itโ€™s a tacit Easter egg.

I choose to assume the former.

14.06.2025 21:25 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

@hannanotte.bsky.social is really good. Thank you for this tip

13.06.2025 19:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

What could they have done, really?

Their proxies and air defense was destroyed last year.

Itโ€™s not like you can rebuild them or relocate your uranium enrichment facilities overnight.

13.06.2025 17:59 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

It would be a half lie, and I donโ€™t know how long a delivery of Taurus missiles would stay secret.

Itโ€™d likely get recorded and visually confirmed by OSINT as soon as Ukraine uses a few.

So no: this likely actually means that Merz decided not to send Taurus.

12.06.2025 21:20 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

What better time than now to bring money to the US, finance the country and indirectly vote for Trumps version of America?

09.06.2025 10:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

If your response to this video is, โ€œThatโ€™s what I voted forโ€โ€”
Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

Youโ€™re heartless.

09.06.2025 00:43 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 18735    ๐Ÿ” 7173    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1651    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1102

Frankly I doubt that institutions will decay and truth finding will occur at the individual level.

Itโ€™s unrealistic and eliminates the key role of reputation. Every endeavor of significance involves many people.

Bellingcat is trusted because many individuals stood for a certain methodology.

08.06.2025 09:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

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