Curations

👀👀👀👀

has anybody ever been more obviously full of shit than Pam Bondi is at the end of this 20 second clip?

Today, Senator Kaine and I will force the Senate to vote on the administration’s decision to blow up ships in the Caribbean.

If a president can unilaterally put people or groups on a list and kill them, there is no meaningful limit to his use of force.

IMF DIRECTOR GEORGIEVA, on @cnbc.com, calls AI a “tsunami” that will impact 60% of jobs — in some fashion.

At the IMF, she says, “We used to have 200 interpreters. Now we have 50.”

1/ Ukrainian drones are making it very difficult to reach the front lines near Pokrovsk, and all but impossible to travel with any supplies, according to a Russian soldier fighting there. He describes Russia trying to push forward over a carpet of corpses. ⬇️

3/ Fundraising has become increasingly precarious due to a sharp drop in the amount of donations. Volunteers have complained that few people now respond to their appeals, and repeated scandals around the theft of donated aid have not helped.

1/ Russia's war effort in Ukraine has become critically dependent on self-funded logistics organised by civilian volunteers and the soldiers themselves, who are spending their salaries on basic supplies and equipment that the state does not provide. ⬇️

Meanwhile, the unluckiest Russian in Ukraine - killed by tertiary syphilis:

1/ Russian UAV specialists are being treated as "slaves" and transferred to extremely high-risk assault squads despite their expertise as engineers and programmers, even in the Russian army's most effective UAV unit, according to a bitterly critical Russian commentary. ⬇️

1/ Three years of gruelling warfare and constant fear of attack, day and night, has left Russian soldiers exhausted and desperate for it to end, even as fresh soldiers are shovelled into the meat grinder. One soldier describes the grim scene among the hills of western Donetsk. ⬇️

"Constructive proposals:
Transparency 💬 honesty 💬 guarantees 💬 reforms 💬 justice 💬 anti-corruption 💬 stop lying 💬💬💬"

😆

The last time a country followed the proposed path, russia decided to invade it to undo these. He's gonna get labeled an extremist russophobic foreign agent.

11/ "• Justice and “symbolic” cases: public and fair decisions on high-profile episodes (including “Puzik” [notorious commander who sent two UAV pilots to their deaths for reporting his drug-dealing activities]), witness protection.

10/ "• Command responsibility for losses: The fighter is a “valuable asset”; material and personnel liability for “excessive/avoidable” losses; retraining in the case of serious miscalculations.

9/ "• Provision and reduction of "cashback from personal salaries": communications, medical kits, UAVs, building materials - at the expense of the state; ending the "monopolisation of humanitarian aid".

8/ "• Reforming training with a focus on the "small sky" [low altitudes]: mass anti-drone training; integration of EW/SIGINT/"drone operators"; targeted fire/tactical training against UAVs.

7/ "• Guarantees of service in a specialism (VUS): protection of UAV/EW/communications operators and technicians from "dissolving" in assaults; securing positions when transferring mobilised personnel to a contract.

6/ "Constructive proposals:

• Transparent and fixed contracts: refusal of automatic renewal; option of smaller bonuses in exchange for a strictly fixed term; "honest" communication of conditions (regional cases, where the campaign was built in a humane manner).

5/ In this thread, Kartavykh gives what he calls a number of "constructive proposals" that the Russian authorities to take to improve recruitment. It's doubtful that any of this would happen, though, as it would require military structures and attitudes to change drastically:

4/ In the third instalment, Kartavykh analyses the themes and trends behind the comments, and draws a number of conclusions.
bsky.app/profile/did:...

3/ The second part highlights representative examples collated by Kartavykh into a number of categories.
bsky.app/profile/chri...

2/ Russian warblogger Alex Kartavykh received thousands of responses to his question of why his followers are "still not storming Pokrovsk". The first thread in this series summarises what respondents gave as their reasons for not joining the army:
bsky.app/profile/chri...

1/ 'HELL NO WE WON'T GO', part 4: what can be done to make going to war more attractive for increasingly sceptical Russians? ⬇️

I don’t think you understand. They lost refining capabilities and so they have to export the raw crude because they can’t process it. Port capacity at max. Wells still pumping with nowhere to pump too. That means they’ll have to shut in wells. In Siberia, that could damage and inability to restart.

In particular, Primorsk and Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea, as well as Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, are either approaching their historical maximums or have been trying to increase traffic all year by striking pumping stations.

🦅🛢️ Ukraine’s attacks are forcing Russia to sell more crude oil — Bloomberg.

Since the beginning of August, Ukraine has carried out at least 28 attacks on Russian refineries.

Although export flows have increased, Russian ports are operating almost at their limits.

Europe’s position has changed in recent weeks, particularly after the Trump administration called on G7 allies to seize “or otherwise use” Russia’s underlying assets “to fund Ukraine’s defence”.

Merz wrote in a recent FT op-ed that €140bn of those funds should be used as a loan to arm Ukraine.

🇧🇪💲🇺🇦 Belgium is under growing pressure to allow the use of frozen Russian assets for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine after Berlin and other western capitals shifted their stance, - FT

About €190bn in Russian sovereign assets held at Euroclear were frozen.

🇨🇿🇺🇦 "We do not want cancellation, but only a review," ANO claims about Czech ammunition initiative that helps Ukraine defend itself, - Novinky

🗣️ Babiš: "It was a good idea. We will discuss it and demand greater transparency and reassessment, perhaps transferring it to NATO."

🔥 Fire signature in the area of ​​"Ekaterinovskaya Pumping Station (PPS)", namely at the electrical substation. Rostov region.