"Russia is blocking WhatsApp and other Western social media platforms as part of an intensification of the Kremlin’s campaign to reassert control over the Russian information space and prevent access to the global internet."
understandingwar.org/research/rus...
SITREP 🇺🇦 DAY 1451
1. No European version of Alaska summit: Macron says time not yet ripe for dialog with Putin
2. Zelensky & Rubio speaking tomorrow at #msc2026
3. $38 bn milaid package for 🇺🇦 by Ramstein group. Not yet enough to cover US fall to zero
4. 25 leakers out of ~100 Shahed
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Here is the record regional budget deficit in 2025 in Russia. This is why, in part, the consolidated budget deficit was over 8.3 trillion rubles last year.
"It’s a slippery slope. A foreign policy only based on power and the pursuit of hardcore interests, while abandoning the values part, would be leading us in the wrong direction. The key question is: How can Europe work to restore a rules-based international order?"
ip-quarterly.com/en/we-have-g...
My dispatch from frozen #Kyiv where residents on the left-bank of the Dnipro River live without heating & power. On Tuesday it was -18C. “Russia is trying to break us. It’s deliberate genocide against the Ukrainian people. People are dying," one resident told me www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...
Moskau versucht, den Friedensprozess durch Korruption zu zerstören: Ein Mega‑Wirtschaftspaket soll die USA vom geopolitischen Gegner zum Geschäftspartner machen. Wer vermeintlich Milliarden oder "Billionen" verdienen kann, stellt keine Sicherheitsgarantien mehr. 1/
Trump, Tech, AfD & Co bestreiten, dass wir eine Souveränität über das eigene Forum besitzen - sie wollen, dass dies durch Setzungen von Trump und Tech aus den USA frembestimmt wird und zerstören so die Meinungsfreiheit. >> heute in der FAS (€)
OTD in 2022 I gave Emmanuel Macron my personal assurances that I would not invade Ukraine.
So you can trust any promise we make now.
Norway’s foreign intelligence service sees a growing risk of a more assertive Russia and China as the US pulls back from international cooperation and institutions www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Just the other day, our friends in 🇸🇪Sweden raised €400,000 in the first five minutes alone of a charity telethon to help Ukraine survive the catastrophic Russian missile strikes on heating and energy infrastructure in the middle of a cold winter.
Honestly, a few years ago I would not have...
“Masha Drokova, a former teen leader of 🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s youth organization, Nashi, who moved to San Francisco around 2017 and launched a venture fund backing tech start-ups, is mentioned more than 1,000 times in the released emails and Skype chats between 2017 and 2019.”
1/
Russia's regional budget deficits increased significantly in 2025, reaching 1.5 trillion RUB. The reason: Increased war financing from the regions and lower profit tax revenue. Regional spending rose by 10%, while regional revenues increased by only 5%.
Der Umstand, dass russisches Staatspropaganda-TV, in dem schlimmste Kriegstreiberei zu sehen ist, zweimal in einer österreichischen Schule war, Jahre nach Beginn der Vollinvasion der Ukraine, macht mich fassungslos. Da ist unglaublich viel falsch gelaufen im System.🧵
Russische Ökonomie im Februar 2026:
„Die Exportumsätze der Russischen Föderation schrumpfen, der Haushalt wird gekürzt, die Steuern wachsen, die Verbrauchernachfrage sinkt und die Zinssenkungen der Zentralbank sind nur noch symbolisch."
SITREP 🇺🇦 DAY 1444
1. Flamingo rocket hits Kapustin Yar launch facilities
2. Trump supports Orban in 🇭🇺 April elex
3. Trump pushes new nuclear treaty after New START expiry
4. No progress after Abu Dhabi trilateral apart from POW exchange
5. Late morning missile+drone strikes vs🇺🇦. No numbers yet
More than ever, we need investigative reporting on China—work that takes time and resources to produce—not commentaries from YouTubers speculating about imminent economic collapse or elite political infighting in China.
5 people told Politico “the planned 🇺🇸🇩🇪 meeting collapsed after State Department officials told the German Embassy in Washington that it was prepared to receive only Christian Democratic and AfD lawmakers, excluding the SPD and the Greens.“
Norbert Röttgen (CDU) rejected that idea. Good on him!
It’s just a bad look no matter which way you cut it, it’s not like Corbyn could have known about any of that stuff, so why delete it? It’s a much bigger moral stain that these guys supported Chomsky after Bosnia & Cambodia. Everyone knew about that stuff & loved him for it!
bsky.app/profile/padr...
Jeremy Corbyn’s “Peace and Justice Project” have just memoryholed Noam Chomsky out of existence and purged mentions of him from their website.
1/ A Russian warblogger explains what the Russian army in Ukraine saw when they were disconnected en masse from Starlink yesterday. ⬇️
#KRITIS Sektor #Energie
Größerer Stromausfall in Stuttgart
"In Stuttgart hat es am Donnerstagvormittag einen kurzzeitigen Stromausfall gegeben. Davon betroffen waren unter anderem das Mobilfunknetz und das Internet. Auch Ampeln fielen aus..."
www.tagesschau.de/inland/regio...
Sebastian on stage at the European Parliament
"Why do people keep calling for a 'European X' or a 'European Instagram' when instead, by sharing infrastructure as we're doing with @eurosky.social, we could have 20 or 30 social networks?" — @seabass.bsky.social
Nach verschiedenen Berichten in den letzten Wochen bestätigt jetzt der GSUA wiederholte Angriffe mit erheblicher Trefferwirkung auf das RU Raketentest- und startgelände Kapustin Jar bei Astrachan. Dabei sollen auch Flamingo-MFK zum Einsatz gekommen sein - unbestätigt, aber plausibel
Germany makes arrests after Russians paid EU citizens to sabotage German warships.
Approximately 20 kg of sand was poured into the engine of one ship, punctured water pipes, removed fuel tank caps, and disabled safety devices, according to the Hamburg prosecutor's office.
‼️ Russia: “Sovcombank is launching a program to lend to companies secured by Bitcoin (BTC).”
🇷🇺: What could possibly go wrong?
www.kommersant.ru/doc/8400593
Talks are back on for Friday after multiple Arab states urgently requested the US give it a chance.
Iran insisting it will only discuss nuclear issue but not proxy militias or ballistic missile program so unclear if there’s a zone of possible agreement.
Israeli security cabinet to meet tmrw.
‘You escape, or you die’: African men say Russia duped them into fighting in Ukraine
edition.cnn.com/2026/02/04/a...
