MENA Consultant. Interested in the intersection of youth, radicalization and social movements. I also HATE Golf. Views strictly my own 🇺🇸🇲🇷
Joined June 2008
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Marry, what prodigy is this? Two rulers in troubled times have spoken of their troubles. Surely the heavens themselves do tremble.
May 17
President Trump spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discussed Iran, Israeli official says
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Russia's relays in Europe still sound trapped in the 2023 script. The irony is that Moscow appears to understand deterrence better than some of its EU admirers: great powers threaten, posture and probe, but they also calculate.
May 16
Alice Weidel says Ukrainian drone strikes inside russia threaten Germany’s security.
Not the russian genocide.
Not the daily terror attacks.
Not the massacres.
Not the millions displaced across Europe.
Only Ukraine fighting back.
Absolutely vile hypocrisy.
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Weddady retweeted
May 15
Very satisfying to see the NBC documentary I worked on last year, exposing the key role being played in eastern DRC by Rwandan troops - despite Kagame's denials - picking up a media award. Rwanda's armed intervention has only expanded since then.
May 15
#DeadlineClubAwards Winner — Digital Video Reporting
@NBCNews: "Hidden Invasion: Inside Rwanda's Covert War in Eastern Congo"
By NBC News staff
#Journalism #DeadlineClubAwards2026
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Here’s a deliberate oversimplification: Russia re-invaded Ukraine in 2022 assuming artillery production and manpower would decide the war.
In 2026, Ukraine is out-droning Russia.
Wars punish armies that adapt too slowly.
MORE: ISW is no longer prepared to forecast when Russian forces might seize Donetsk, including the Fortress Belt, since the slowing rate of Russian advances and the challenging nature of the Ukrainian-held terrain in Donetsk makes it unclear that Russia is capable of seizing the territory at all. ⬇️
Russia’s exaggerated territorial ambitions and aggressive territorial demands run completely counter to battlefield reality. Anonymous sources in contact with Putin and additional sources familiar with the matter as well as a Ukrainian intelligence assessment shared with FT indicate that senior Russian commanders have convinced Putin that Russian forces could seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by Fall 2026. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces have only advanced 349.89 square kilometers in Donetsk Oblast since the start of 2026, an advance rate of 2.63 square kilometers per day.
Strong Ukrainian fortifications, the area’s challenging human and physical geography, and Ukrainian counterattacks and mid-range strike campaign that are already inhibiting Russian offensive operations across the theater make the prospects for a Russian seizure of the rest of Donetsk dim.
Russian forces first infiltrated into Kostyantynivka (the Fortress Belt’s southernmost city) in October 2025 and have failed to make any significant tactical gains in the city over the last six months. Ukrainian counterattacks in southern Ukraine since early 2026 have also forced Russia to choose between defending against Ukrainian counterattacks and allocating manpower and resources to priority sectors of the frontline, including the Fortress Belt.
Ukraine’s recent successes are accomplishing tactical, operational, and strategic battlespace effects that undermine Putin’s narrative that the Ukrainian frontlines are on the verge of collapse. Two people involved in back-channel negotiations over ending the war told the FT that Putin’s ambitions are still to control all the Ukrainian territory between Russia and the Dnipro River, and possibly farther into Kyiv City and the port of Odesa, despite Russia’s stalling offensive. Putin’s thinking thus appears to be further and further removed from battlefield realities, likely resulting in the issuance of orders to the Russian military to make gains that it is not capable of making.
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Plenty of ironies here:
- one of the rare moments Sputnik accidentally broadcasts reality
- real-time realization that Putin’s Russia is becoming an anachronistic construct
May 13
Darkness continues to descend upon the Russian propaganda matrix, with mainstream propagandist Anastasia Kashevarova saying that Ukraine is "collapsing us" and not only advancing but "winning" due to technological and numerical advantage in drones.
She further agrees with the host that even of they announce mobilization, they have nothing with which to arm them.
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His former employee..
May 9
Putin has just named 82-year-old former German Chancellor Schröder as his preferred negotiator for dialogue between Russia and Europe
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In 1941, Soviet troops marched through Red Square on their way to the front. In 2026, much of the military hardware at Putin’s parade existed mainly on screens. Empires reveal themselves in moments like these.
May 9
"Military hardware wasn't on the square, but on a screen." What I saw at the Victory Day parade on Red Square.
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“Europe is our only hope” is ultimately a bet that the continent that produced the Enlightenment, fascism, communism and two world wars has truly changed. Europe’s current nationalist turn suggests history may not be entirely finished with Europe yet.
My euro mandated zizek morning slop for you to watch. You will watch and you will enjoy
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You can see the ghosts of Pham Van Dong and Kissinger in this exchange.
One side signaling patience and good faith, the other negotiating through pressure. The difference now?
Both think they’re the patient side.
x.com/i/status/2043441805270…
In intensive talks at highest level in 47 years, Iran engaged with U.S in good faith to end war.
But when just inches away from "Islamabad MoU", we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade.
Zero lessons earned
Good will begets good will.
Enmity begets enmity.
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Iran’s problem is that its chess-playing strategy can still be neutralized by blunt checkers moves. That’s the gap between a regional power and a superpower.
x.com/i/status/2051790155669…
May 5
For Iran, the Strait of Hormuz turned from leverage to a trap. Blockade made it an international issue with other countries directly harmed by it, beyond the U.S. and its regional allies.
- Iraqi commentator Liqa Maki to Al Jazeera x.com/amer_alhanooti/status/…
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The Iranian regime realizes that reopening Hormuz and lifting the blockade alone are not enough to justify the damage Iran suffered. This is no longer just about posturing. It’s about reconstruction costs, recovery and time.
x.com/i/status/2052458571950…
x.com/i/status/2052458571950…
UPDATE: Navigation will return to normal in the Strait of Hormuz if the war ends and the blockade as well as sanctions are lifted, says Iran's FM
🔴 LIVE updates: aje.news/h5pevi?update=45541…
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Meanwhile, Mali is sliding toward civil war:
- Ethnic lynchings reported
- Arrests military purges
- ISIS attacking GSIM from the flank
- Fighting nearing borders
No Western action in sight. Russia is in. Others are circling. The Sahel is entering a far more dangerous period.
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Cheap planes and smart drones are changing warfare: imagine this in the Sahel, in small border wars, or in the hands of militias. It’s only a matter of time. this is getting easier and cheaper to put together.
⚡️The legendary civilian Ukrainian An-28, modified into a “Shahed hunter” with over 150 confirmed kills, has now been adapted to launch interceptor drones in flight.
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The SPG-9 is so old there are iconic images of Egyptian troops carrying it on their backs across the Bar-Lev Line in 1973. Paired with tablets and phone apps in Ukraine, it becomes something new again: another cheap, low-tech/high-tech killer.
Ukrainian soldiers are firing an SPG-9/ARGL-H recoilless gun in indirect fire mode.
For aiming, they are using a digital ballistic calculator and the SGL-9MA sight.
Via "1tuma.n"
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