The German government has 15 aircraft at its disposal for the use of ministers and the Chancellor - with 3 more on order. France has 5. Even Greece has 2. It’s normal - this isn’t a scandal.
'I used the government plane. That is why we have a government plane'
@TrussLiz
says 'every government decision is based on value for money' after confirming she flew to Australia on the government's private jet - a trip estimated to be worth around £500,000
I’m 15 minutes into this so called interview and the degree of historical disinformation presented is astounding:
- Poles did not suppress Ukrainians (Rutheneans, during the time of the Commonwealth). They had equal representation in the Sejm. As did Tatars.
Just like three years ago when Belarus imported migrants to weaponise them on the Polish and Latvian borders. This is the height of hybrid warfare - yet the useful idiots on the left will demonise Finland for trying to protect its border, just like they did with Poland:
BREAKING:
Finnish border guards are forced to use tear gas as a large group of illegal migrants from Syria and Iraq are trying to force its way into Finland from Russia at the Niirila border crossing
Russia uses weaponized migration as a tool of hybrid warfare against 🇫🇮 & 🇪🇪
Leaving Georgia after four day visit for a conference and meeting with a dozen different civil society groups and think tanks.
Key takeaway: Citizens in Georgia are serious about their Euro-Atlantic future, west needs to get more serious about helping them achieve it.
One of the biggest mistakes in US foreign policy of the mid-2000s was the failure to put a missile defence system in Central Europe. A failure that ultimately spanned two administrations attempts to do so.
BREAKING:
Poland’s Defense Minister
@mblaszczak
has stated that he will suggest to Germany that the Patriot air defense systems they offered to station in Poland should be given to Ukraine instead.
PM Morawiecki & head of the ruling PIS party Kaczynski have concurred.
🇵🇱🇺🇦🇩🇪
A lot to break down in this video - but what stands out for me is how much warmer everyone is with Erdogan compared to Mitsotakis. Turkey has seemingly pivoted back towards the West and the key players seem to be encouraging them.
I keep repeating it - but there is a radicalised fifth column in German society, particularly made up of ethnic Russians whose only exposure to the media for thirty years has been Kremlin propaganda.
Something is wrong in Berlin.
15 000 people gathered to protest against weapon deliveries to 🇺🇦
Some of them climbed the burnt-out Russian tank placed in front of the Russian Embassy.
They tore down the Ukrainian flag and stomped on it.
Police was present but didn’t intervene
I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time in Moldova in the past and a warning like this doesn’t come lightly. There’s a significant destabilising movement within the country that has held it back for decades and tried to tie the country to Russia.
BREAKING:
Moldovan president Maia Sandu has held a speech to nation, warning that Russia is planning a coup d'état in Moldova, complete with attacks on government buildings and hostage-taking by men with military training working under the guise of “opposition protesters.”
BREAKING:
Politico reports Biden is now backing Dutch PM Mark Rutte to become the next Secretary General NATO later this year, snubbing the Central Eastern European countries supporting Estonia’s PM Kaja Kallas
They still don’t listen to those who know Russia best…
- Poland did not cooperate and sign an agreement with Nazi Germany of the transference or claiming of Ukrainian land.
- Bolsheviks did not try to restore Ukrainian statehood but end it. Poland fought with Ukraine in 1920 for both nations independence.
- The claim that Poland collaborated with Germany over the partition of Czechoslovakia is also not entirely true. Poland moved to defend ethnic Poles after the partition had already been forced. This also took place in 1938 - not 1939 as is implied.
Another message we can all get behind. Georgia is the only country to officially recognise the Circassian genocide. When Russia invaded Circassia in 1863, they deported the population and killed 1.5 million people.
- I find his emphasis on the German territory “given” to Poland in 1945 interesting. First of all he ignores that Silesia had previously been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Secondly the way he describes it is similar to how German revanchist like the AfD do.
Joost Klein, the Dutch representative at the European Song Contest is strongly anti-Israel but loves the Russian aggressor state
He released a song 3 weeks after the full-scale invasion with the lyrics:
“l’m Joost Klein. love Russia, I want a Russian woman, I want Russian
I can't vote in Belgium, nor can expats living in Spain or Germany or France, and I doubt they would make the same concessions for us.
So no - EU citizens in the UK shouldn't be allowed to vote.
I’ve lost count of how many times in the last few years politicians from Central and Eastern Europe have tried to raise the alarm over Russian aggression - only to be met with condescension from Paris, Berlin, and Brussels.
Let’s just clear something up - Pashinyan is not criticising the Kremlin for its war in Ukraine, it is criticising the Kremlin for not doing the same thing to Azerbaijan:
Armenia's prime minister on Tuesday accused a Moscow-dominated security alliance of leaving his country in the cold in the face of a threat of renewed hostilities with neighboring Azerbaijan.
BREAKING:
The new “Defense of the Homeland-law” came into force in Poland today.
It will increase the Polish Army from 150 000 to 300 000 over the next years & introduce more modern equipment.
It will also increase military spending from slightly over 2% of GDP to 3% by 2023.
It seems to me that the world has been taken for a ride on this Imane Khelif story. If you scratch beneath the surface a few things come out - least of all a Kremlin plot to discredit the Games:
Absolutely spot on from
@edwardlucas
on the Wests naive (and frankly at times bizarre) self congratulatory behaviour over Ukraine.
West Should Not Congratulate Itself While Ukraine Bleeds - CEPA
For those who worried Milei would be another Trump - on his first day in office he met with Zelensky and pledged his full support.
For the first time Argentina has a truly Western facing President.
For those who really want to understand the weaponisation of history (as seen last night) - then I highly recommend reading
@DrJadeMcGlynn
- fantastically well researched and written book: Memory Makers
Any tank expert could tell you that T-72s migrate south in the Spring looking for warmer weather and fresh hunting grounds. It’s only natural that such tanks may suddenly reappear elsewhere.
The Poles say a sudden arrival of large numbers of T-72s to the Donbas operated by the Ukrainian Army can’t be linked to the disappearance of the Polish 100 tanks from in Lublin.
They say T-72s can be bought in any army surplus store, just like the weapons used in Crimea in 2014
Since people liked these thoughts on the first 15 minutes - here's the rest:
- The myth that Lenin transferred additional lands to Ukraine during the creation of the Ukraine SSR is not true. This is an attempt to further the claim of a so called 'Novorossiya'.
“Arrogance begets complacency. When Russia started making mischief in Western countries they responded by dismissing the problem as a mere irritant.” - great piece by
@edwardlucas
on how Western dismissiveness brought us to this point.
Medvedev threatening the sovereignty of Estonia: “The fact that you are free is not your merit, but our shortcoming.”
Apparently this kind of thing is acceptable on Twitter?
После украинского
ковёрного очередную нацистскую
хрень в адрес граждан России выдала и эстонская тётка: «Посещение Европы – это привилегия, а не право человека».
Так и хочется ей напомнить другие слова: «То, что вы на свободе, не ваша заслуга, а наша недоработка».
Myth: US military support for
#Ukraine
is unaffordable.
Fact: For 25 cents each day per American, the Ukrainians are dismantling the conventional military forces of the Russian Federation.
cc:
@LukeDCoffey
- His personal anecdote about ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine is a blatant attempt to sugarcoat the treatment of Transcarpathian Hungarians under Soviet occupation. In reality they had less rights and representation under communism than they do now in Ukraine.
“The Soviet Union didn’t collapse in 1991 - it was the beginning of a collapse that is still taking place today… we haven’t seen the outcome of that collapse yet.” -
@LukeDCoffey
- Under communism, 600,000 Transcarpathian Hungarians were deported and used as forced labour by the Soviet Union. 200,000 of them died on the way. Those that remained were forced to learn Russian.
Happy 119th Birthday to the
@UKLabour
Party. When founded it supported free trade as a means of importing affordable food for the working class and stood up for equality. A lot can change in 119 years.
Russian attack with incendiary munitions against Ukrainian positions.
The thermite burns at 3000 degrees Celsius and leaves horrible, often deadly wounds, on anyone who comes in contact with it.
John Cena, who stars in the latest installment in the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise, apologized in Mandarin to fans in China on Tuesday after he referred to Taiwan as a country in an interview.
Using my downtime to read
@mbk_center
new book - “The Russia Conundrum” - a uniquely personal account of the recent history of Russia and the struggle for freedom.
- "Russia agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union" is perhaps one of the most loaded statements so far. The reality is far more complex - Yeltsin wanted to break up the USSR, whilst Gorbachev tried to prevent him.
- Another claim he keeps coming back to is the idea of 'NATO Expansion'. NATO doesn't expand - but rather it enlarges. NATO is a voluntary association of nations who apply to join - expansion implies that they were absorbed without choice.
Heartwarming footage from Ukraine.
An elderly woman freezes when she sees a soldier by her house as she thinks he’s from the Russian Army.
The Ukrainian soldier says “it’s our guys coming” and she gives him a long hug.
This is how liberation after 6 months looks like.
The more I think about it - the more it makes sense to create a kind of Balfour Declaration for an independent Circassian State.
More than 4 million
#Circassians
live scattered across the world since the
#CircassianGenocide
- maybe it’s time to give them back their homeland?
If you thought the 'Oxbridge' elite in the UK was a problem - wait until you read about the "Enarques" in France. Pro-Russian, anti-American, elitist.
Fantastic article by
@moutet
on the products of Frances elite government finishing school.
Never underestimate the hard work that our Conservative MEPs did over their time in office. Just because they didn’t get praised at home doesn’t mean that they haven’t done a huge amount for boosting Britain’s influence around the world.
Huge honour to be decorated by President Dukanović of Montenegro
@predsjednik_cg
with the Order of the Montenegrin Flag ("Orden Crnogorske zastave" ) in recognition of my decade 2009-2019 as MNE Standing Rapporteur of the European Parliament. I've witnessed MNE make huge progress
Spiegel writes that Olaf Scholz told SPD MPs on Friday that he was recently stopped by a Polish man for a talk while he was out jogging.
He claimed the Pole had told him:
“thank you for not allowing the Polish government drive you crazy regarding the Leopard 2 tanks”
Deeply sad to read this - under his leadership TVP World became a reliable, trustworthy, and much needed voice for not just Poland but the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. It gave a platform to those who needed it from Ukraine, Taiwan, the Belarusian opposition and more.
Today, I was relieved of my duties as director of
@TVPWorld_com
, and I would like to extend my gratitude to my team. We started from scratch and succeeded against all odds. Our achievements would not have been possible without your dedication. Together, we built trust among our
These sanctions proposed by the government are entirely lacklustre - the sanctions list should be hundreds long. HMG should be seizing and not freezing assets.
- It's interesting that Egon Bahr is highlighted as an example of someone who wanted to cooperate with Russia. In 1989 Bahr had tried to claim that Germany shouldn't reunify. Bahr had previously been a pioneer of the Soviet Friendly "Ostpolitik" foreign policy doctrine.
- Fascinating that he talks about the 'Bloody developments of Maidan'. The only blood spilt was that of protestors shot by members of the 'Militia' - the so called heavenly hundred. The violence was initiated by the pro-Russian regime.
- The claim that there was a "third round" during the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Elections is untrue. OSCE and other observers found the run-off election to have been fraudulent and the courts ruled it should be re-run.
The legacy of Brussels Art Nouveau architecture never ceases to amaze me. Stumbled on this building whilst out for a walk. Never noticed before because previously hidden by scaffolding.
Ukraine & Israel - both democracies - are both under attack from the same type of drones launched by Russia and Iran - dictatorships. Like it or not multipolarity is here to stay and there’s no fence sitting.
Either you’re with Ukraine, Israel, and the West - or you’re not.
@edwardlucas
The message of this seems to be: just because someone can write a half decent TV show about spies, it doesn’t mean they’re qualified to talk about Russia. This is pure apologism - not just for Putin but for the Soviet Union as well.
There are a lot of votes there clearly from MEPs who’s governments are saying the opposite in the European Council. Maybe they should put more pressure on their national capitals - especially Berlin and Paris.
It’s almost as though the freight driver shortage is Europe wide, and reflective of an older generation of drivers retiring without younger replacement due to poor working conditions. This is my local supermarket in Brussels.
Moving speech by
@fatimatlis
- journalist and advocate for Circassian rights. Circassia was an early victim of Russian genocide, with more than 80% of the population being exterminated or deported by Russia during their conquest of the Caucasus.
- The claim that the 'Revolution of Dignity' was a CIA backed coup is entirely unsubstantiated. It was a grassroots movement that from the ground up against Viktor Yanukovych for misleading the public.
I’ve been reflecting on this for some time. How much intelligence are we losing from not having bases stationed conveniently between Russia, China, and Iran? What has been the cost to our intelligence communities of our withdrawal?
On this day in 2020 - the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko stole the elections, despite obvious signs that the opposition won. Today Lukashenko hides behind the support of Russia and the Wagner Group but the people haven’t given up on the idea of a free
#Belarus
.
#StandWithBelarus
Contrast with the Russian President who has divorced, and had multiple children by different women. Zelensky has a better claim to represent traditional family values.
Written last year: “Preparing for the Final Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Dissolution of the Russian Federation”.
I offer 7 questions policymakers should think about now in order to prepare for what we are seeing today inside Russia.
- I could write a whole thread on its own covering the problems with the Minsk Agreement. But its interesting that he claims that the West had no interest in upholding them when it was Russia that broke them by firing on Ukrainian positions.
- He claims that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that borders were settled. However, Russia on numerous occasions before 2014 disputed them - even starting from independence in 1991.
Today marks 14 years since the late 🇵🇱 President Lech Kaczyński warned the international community over Russia in a landmark speech in Tbilisi:
„Today
#Georgia
, tomorrow
#Ukraine
, the day after tomorrow –
#BalticStates
& later, perhaps, time will come for my country,
#Poland
".
In a victory for Ukraine in its “borscht-war”, UNESCO has added Ukrainian borscht-making to its list of intangible cultural heritage
Spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, M. Zakharova, accuses Kyiv of appropriating the soup for one nation. “This is xenophobia,” she said
I’ve always had a big problem with the phrase “regulatory superpower” being used in Brussels as though its a good thing. It’s not - it’s a byword for anti growth protectionism:
On this day in 1965 Sir Winston Churchill died - my great grandfather attended his funeral and kept everything from that day, right down to the parking instructions.
Pro-Russian groups, with the support of the FSB, have launched a wave of protests across the country for more than a year now. They have helped to spread disinformation and create a climate of fear amongst ethnic Russians in the country.
There are times I get very fed up with the domestic agenda. We’ve just seen Hong Kong hold fraudulent elections, rigged by the Chinese Communist Party, in contravention to the Sino-British joint declaration and theres woefully little coverage.
I think it’s right to call it a storm in a teacup. What’s more is that I’d rather the head of the foreign services was travelling in some degree of privacy at a time like now. I wouldn’t want her doing her red boxes in public for all to see.
‘I think to some extent people will think this is a bit of a storm in a teacup.'
GB News political reporter Tom Harwood on the story of Liz Truss using a government plane to fly to Australia at a cost to the taxpayer.
📺: Freeview 236, Sky 515, Virgin 626
📻: DAB+
For two decades, ethnic Russians in Germany had access to two TV channels in their own language: Россия-24 and Первый канал - both Kremlin linked networks.