Keir Giles
@KeirGiles
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"Who Will Defend Europe?" asks my next book, and the answers aren't encouraging. Out on 24 October, available for pre-order now - link in bio!
Probably on a plane
Joined April 2011
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Pinned Tweet
If you're in reach of London on 6 November, come to the launch of "Who Will Defend Europe". Hosted by
@KCL_CGS
, and featuring
@NKuhrt
and
@DrJadeMcGlynn
.
Sign up here:
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A couple of years ago people got quite upset at me for this. I wonder if it’s the same today.
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We could have told you that.
Oh wait, we did. For decades.
The EU "must confess we have adopted too naïve an attitude toward Russia and based our expectations on...erroneous ideas," Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin tells the European Parliament.
"We should have listened to our Baltic and Polish friends who lived under Soviet rule."
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Clear warning from Norway’s Luhansk-experienced general Arne Bård Dalhaug at Leangkollen conference - whatever the outcome in Ukraine, the end of the current fighting will not bring “peace” without effective means of deterring Russia from having another go in five years.
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“WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO THE BALTIC STATES AND POLAND ABOUT HOW TO DEAL WITH RUSSIA. THEY WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!”
“Quite. So will you listen to them now, since they’re still right?”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
500 days into Russia’s invasion, there are signs Ukraine’s supporters want to prepare the ground for negotiations. Such a shift would be catastrophic, warns
@jamesnixey
(
@CHRussiaEurasia
).
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Hugely grateful to Border Force staff for making Heathrow so much less slow and miserable today by being on strike.
Heathrow staffer tells me “there are no passport queues because the Army puts more people on the desks”. Odd how nobody ever figured that solution out before.
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One of the few things that startled me when researching the book 'Russia's War on Everybody' was not the scale of Russian violence against diplomatic, military and intelligence staff of the US and its allies - but the extent of US efforts to conceal it.
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The trouble is, removing Russia from SWIFT has been debated so intensely (and so often before) that now, *not* doing it sends a stronger message than doing it – and that message is one of encouragement to President Putin.
#Ukraine
#sanctions
#SanctionsRussiaNow
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OK, I watched as much of it as I could. A thread with some thoughts.
Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin was good news for everybody involved. The only problem is, everybody involved is an enemy of the United States, of the West, of democracy and of genuine journalism.
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Kermode.
Hugely impressed this morning with how many people want us to know that they wouldn't watch
@GBNEWS
"if their lives depended on it", BUT that they are still expert witnesses on its content.
If you have a season ticket for the outrage bus, I suppose you've got to use it.
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Short version: internal report confirms Facebook knew perfectly well its content delivery system actively favoured attempts by Russia and others to subvert our societies and democracies, and did nothing about it.
Damning insights into the colossal damage done to public debate.
On the eve of the 2020 election, troll farms were running vast page networks on FB targeting Christian, Black, & Native Americans. An internal report tracking the situation described it as "genuinely horrifying." Some of the pages remain two year later.
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In summary: Ukraine should negotiate because Russia is suffering excessively heavy casualties - he knows because his FSB escort told him.
Once again the world seems startled by the idea that being imprisoned then exiled doesn't actually stop Russians wanting victory for Russia.
Commenting on the war in Ukraine, Yashin called on the parties to sit at the negotiating table…
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@JeremyKlemin
It’s a shame it took a major global disaster for it to become acceptable to mention this about the United States.
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The whole speech (in Russian) is just bizarre.
Eastern Europe: “We will never be secure until Russia moves on from being a bloody, genocidal empire.”
The Pope: “Young Russians! Don’t stop! Never give up the legacy of your Empire!”
Lord save us from the Pope’s ideas.
This morally vacant person is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Some people pay attention to the things he says.
The “great culture and great humanity” of Russia has brought to the world the genocide of the Ukrainian people. That is the legacy Pope Francis celebrates.
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One part in the book I’m writing deals with Western double standards, rushing to step in and protect everybody except Ukraine, because doing for Ukraine what you do for others would be “escalatory”. That part was already quite long and has just got longer.
US President Joe Biden has praised American forces who he said "helped Israel take down nearly all" drones and missiles launched by Iran.
I'm glad Israel managed to protect itself, but imagine how Ukrainians feel reading this? We can help Ukraine but don't. It's immoral.
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A helpful (multilingual) collection of strong arguments against pressing for peace at any price. Another ceasefire on Moscow's terms would allow Russia to regroup and then resume its war on the West. Support for Ukraine must be for winning, not just ending, its fight for freedom.
This Swedish professor nailed it:
"The West is on its way to Putin's trap."
(use translator for the article; Swedish translates well)
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Some people will take Putin's nuclear threats seriously. Mostly, it's those political leaders who need them as an excuse for their own disastrous failure to act.
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@BillEvanina
@Mpolymer
Overall, the whole sorry story backs up the suggestion that with or without Trump, the highest levels of decision-making in the US suffer from a pathological reluctance to confront Russia and present it with consequences for its actions.
6 and end/
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“How do you know which side in a conflict is lying, and which is not?
It’s very simple. The lying side is the one that has to bring in censorship, close down the media, and silence its own citizens.”
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In short, Ukrainian blood on German hands. Again.
If a 🇷🇺 offensive succeeds, or a 🇺🇦 offensive fails, it will be very difficult for Berlin to deflect the view, from allies and partners, that it was 🇩🇪 fault. This indecision will have impact on German reputation and trust for decades
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Russia-Ukraine talks kick off with an assurance from the Belarusian hosts that "you are in complete safety, this is our sacred duty". Sounds like Belarus too remembers Moscow's habit of kidnapping peace delegations.
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Another potential case study for the extraordinary correlation between Russia apologists and sex offenders.
🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Russell Brand has been accused of rape and sexual assaults by women who have broken their silence on alleged attacks between 2006 and 2013
This is a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and
@C4Dispatches
✍️
@RosamundUrwin
@char_wace
@pmorganbentley
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It's taken Russia five whole days to give up pretending and fall back on its preferred way of waging war: mass and indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians, in an attempt to terrorise its victims into submission for daring to prefer freedom to Moscow's rule.
Kharkiv.
Russian BM-21 Grad liberate Ukrainians from their lives and properties
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Stunning self-indictment by
@amnesty
after caving to pressure over Navalny. Recognition of "orchestrated campaign", but "we had too many requests; we couldn't ignore them."
The Kremlin thanks you, Amnesty, for confirming that Russian trolling works.
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“The EU” meaning, again, France and Germany. The headline is unfair on countries like Estonia that have been pulling more than their weight.
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Russia threatens Denmark over possibility of US troop presence on Bornholm.
Let's think for a moment about the possible reasons why Russia would really not want NATO allies protecting a Danish island 300 km west of Kaliningrad.
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If
@pmakela1
has been suspended for his tweet about how invading Russians will be dead if they cross the Finnish border, then suspend me too because no matter how hard I try I still don’t see fighting back to defend your homeland against a Russian invasion as a bad thing.
Finnish defence analyst
@pmakela1
seems to have been suspended. He's a recognised voice, having appeared in Finnish media commenting on the war in
#Ukraine
, see e.g. link.
@Twitter
@TwitterSupport
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It’s not a “risk”. We’re already there.
Lord Dannatt: We risk repeat of 1930s unless we invest in our armed forces
Insufficient spending on defence while asking our overstretched military to do ever more with less invites acts of aggression from the likes of Putin and Xi
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'Supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes” is a public declaration that there is no initiative, no plan, and no strategy.' US refusal to confront Russia has led to learned helplessness, meaning Putin can continue to wage war without fear.
Now unpaywalled.
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I listened to the intro to my slot on
@BBCNews
. It was about the shelling of civilians being evacuated from flooded areas after the Kakhovka dam breach. “Artillery fire has hindered” evacuation - people “were shelled” - it’s all passive voice with not a single mention of Russia.
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This is delightful. A Russian imperialist has posted a lengthy whingefest on the "humour to counter disinformation" report from Helsinki Hybrid CoE. And reading it validates two of the report's key points:
a) NAFO-like movements really do help
b) vatniks have no sense of humour.
Диванные войска НАТО против русов
Я давно заметила, что про Россию очень тяжело писать публично, потому что все твои аргументы заранее высмеяны (не опровергнуты, заметим, а высмеяны) и прекрасно укладываются в русоборческий нарратив. «Ахах бомбас домбили». «Ахах да нужны вы сто
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It’s hard to grasp the scale of this failure. After all the progress BBC and other Western media had made in understanding a) Russia and b) the difference between ‘balance’ and objective reporting when facing a disinfo campaign, everything has been unlearned overnight.
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@BillEvanina
But the common factor to all of these attacks - whether against US personnel or those of the US's close allies - was the victims being told to keep quiet about it. Cases like this that become widely known are the exception.
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@ICDS_Tallinn
@CHRussiaEurasia
11/ Taken together, these ten principles could help the West avoid repeating past errors in dealing with Moscow. This in turn would provide the basis for a relationship with Russia that is less hostage to misunderstanding and surprise.
For more, see
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@BillEvanina
Another consistent point is apparent unwillingness to deal with the issue. Mil and intel staff know the problem and suffer the consequences: but their fight for official recognition is depressingly well documented. (
@Mpolymer
and plenty more.)
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The only slight surprise was that Tucker Carlson turned out to be a spectacularly poor interviewer even when trying to help Putin along.
/13 and good night.
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The T-14 Armata supertank, Russia’s wonder weapon. As in everybody’s wondering where it is.
Ukraiņi smej, ka krievu supertanks Armata patiešām ir brīnumierocis - frontē līdz šim nevienu vēl nav izdevies iznīcināt. Vēl vairāk - to nav izdevies pat pamanīt. Pēdējoreiz esot manīts tikai grāmatvedības rēķinos.
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Ukraine, Russia, genocide and how the war must end - but not yet.
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"If Russia wins the US presidential election, then Russia wins the war on Ukraine" - and that is just the start.
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Can we please stop saying that Russia's demands are all about Ukraine not joining NATO.
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Because I'd already written a lot about Russian information warfare and steps to cut Russians off from the outside world, from 2014 on I've constantly been asked the question - how can we get the truth to ordinary people in Russia?
I honestly not once thought of crowdsourcing it.
If you speak Russian, call Russia and tell them what is happening in Ukraine. Link here:
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"Russian disruption in Europe points to patterns of future aggression."
Joining the dots between GPS jamming, sabotage, reconnaissance of key logistics links and other stuff we expected Russia to practice ahead of a broader conflict with Europe.
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Russia's bugbear, the 'Anglo-Saxons', seem unsurprisingly to be the prime target. US, Canadian staff have been hit by 'Havana Syndrome'. What about the UK? In a 2021 BBC interview
@BillEvanina
challenged the suggestion no UK personnel have suffered.
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Finlandisation seems like a good option for Ukraine, given that it means EU membership, strong anti-corruption law, intimate cooperation with NATO, joining the JEF and buying F-35s and JASSMs to dissuade further Russian military tomfoolery, etc. etc. etc.
(h/t
@alexgarcialonso
)
“Dans l’avion qui l’emmenait à Moscou, le président avait confié à quelques journalistes que l’idée d’une «finlandisation» de l’Ukraine faisait partie, entre autres sujets, des dossiers posés sur la table”
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Written before y'day's confirmation of North Korean missiles, but all the more urgent for it: Western assumption that only Russia can take the initiative gives Moscow a free hand to murder Ukrainians across the country without consequence. There is no excuse for that to continue.
It's time to step away from the West's learned helplessness on Russia, writes
@KeirGiles
. Read more here:
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I strongly support this call for the peace movement to “intervene” in the war on Ukraine. For maximum impact I recommend they do so directly by travelling to Bakhmut, standing in front of a Wagner human wave and asking it to go home.
"
#Ukraine
in ruins. Mountains of dead. A world on the brink. It's time for the peace movement to intervene."
MEP's
@ClareDalyMEP
&
@wallacemick
encourage you to take to the streets for peace this weekend:
#PeaceNow
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Why does the West get Russia so wrong, so often? False premises lead to faulty policy.
A team of
@ChathamHouse
authors have dissected 16 of the most damaging myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings about Russia that lead to repeating the same mistakes.
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"A coup would result in events in three or four largest cities in Russia, while the rest of the country would go on living as per usual."
Recommended reading, including the unfashionable conclusion that Russia must be "left to stew in its own juice".
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Why does the BBC insist on giving this muppet a platform to pronounce his nonsense? It’s not as though he has said anything we didn’t hear from him the last 15 times.
“[We haven’t] started yet to act very seriously”
#BBCLauraK
speaks to Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin, who warns of “escalation” of the war in Ukraine
Watch the full interview tomorrow
@BBCOne
9am
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Russia denies Chief of General Staff Gerasimov has been sacked. So it may well be true.
Whoever would have thought they might need a new Doctrine?
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Russia has erased the memory of the billions in funds and food aid that the West poured into the country after it destroyed itself through communism, just as it expunged the role of Lend-Lease 50 years before. But Western apologists buy into this reversal of history too.
Enfin madame. Vous savez très bien que ce n’est pas vrai. On reproche d’ailleurs souvent aux Occidentaux d’avoir « trop » aidé la Russie dans les années 1991-1996.
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As so often, Vladimir Putin has found a willing helper in exploiting the self-harming behaviour of Western media outlets. The media frenzy around the interview in the West will provide an enormous boost to Carlson's new outlet, and bring him many more viewers.
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People who are habitually right about Russia are warning, unanimously it seems, of how a hasty peace on the wrong terms would be gravid with future dangers for far more victims than Ukraine.
@a7_FIN_SWE
one more for your collection.
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That in turn will ensure that Putin's toxic messages reach a far wider audience than they would have done otherwise - endorsed and boosted by exposure on Elon Musk's X.
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The fact that this “European official” has to request anonymity to state the blindingly obvious suggests that their office is located somewhere westward of the Oder-Neisse line.
One European official, requesting anonymity to speak candidly said that the Biden "administration’s pathological fear of escalation and of Ukrainian success is one major reason for the death of so many Ukrainians."
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But it's plain that even though he is used to deluded conspiracy theorists, Carlson was unready for Putin's alternative reality. In the first seconds when Putin denies ever saying the direct quote Carlson had just read out to him, Carlson is reduced to giggling helplessly.
/10
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I'm still listening to Putin's speech so you don't have to. Trust me, I'm doing you a big favour.
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Archbishop Leo of the Finnish Orthodox Church (a religious leader) has called on Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (a state functionary endorsing Russia's campaign to destroy Ukraine) to remember he made promises to God as well as to Putin.
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I checked, and this does not appear to be a parody UN account but the real thing doing its best to look even more ridiculous than everybody imagined.
We are appalled at the news that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has died in prison.
The Russian authorities must ensure a credible investigation into Navalny's death & end the persecution of politicians, human rights defenders & journalists, among others.
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@IlvesToomas
@DrRadchenko
Russia is trying to prevent any more countries joining NATO by means of a campaign which demonstrates the clear advantages of joining NATO.
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Otherwise, the whole two-hours-plus of the encounter panned out exactly as predicted. It was a platform for Putin to give an extended monologue explaining the World According to Vladimir, based on a wildly distorted account of the past history of Russia and its neighbours -
/11
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“Growing fear EU firms in Russia will be forced to fund war.”
Why should they be concerned? After all, if they are still operating in Russia today, it is already a clear statement that they support the war.
@Boycott_RU
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Encouraging mask discipline, Russian style.
(A setup, the mall security guard and the victim are actors. But watch the reactions.)
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It is often hard to determine whether propagandists for the Kremlin are conscious agents of influence, knowingly doing the bidding of a hostile power in order to harm their own countries, or useful idiots, who believe they have made up their own minds that Russia is right.
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And if THIS update is accurate, the reason Russia didn’t suffer an embarrassing attack on its Navy Day parade is because Russia told the US to tell Ukraine not to embarrass it because “escalation”, and the US complied.
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In Carlson's case, there is a clear track record of taking opportunities to attack and undermine the US and its democratic system. But the fact that the Putin interview will be enormously lucrative means he may simply not care that he is being exploited as a hapless tool.
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If this is a Russian military “special operation”, I don’t even want to know what an ordinary operation would look like.
Jos tämä on Venäjän armeijan erikoisoperaatio niin en halua tietää, että miltä näyttäisi ihan tavallinen operaatio. 🤔 Hyvää yötä.
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- punctuated by occasional ineffectual efforts by Carlson to get back to doing an "interview". The result was as one-sided as expected, with Carlson giving Putin an open platform for over two hours of unchallenged disinformation and delusion.
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