Browsing Edinburgh Uni jobs and completely misread this.

Russia's Desired Borders according to Peter Zeihan (map from 2016!). Source: buff.ly/3BNZgpb

“If the Kremlin has ambitions for Kharkiv, or something even more difficult like southern Ukraine, then they will need to generate a very large force, probably well over 100,000 for both, plus the equipment,” Massicot said ft.com/content/1e7204…

Russia transformed its border with Ukraine over the past two years with multiple lines of defenses.

Russian forces continue expanding fortifications along this border and within occupied Ukraine. This update adds newly mapped Russian positions found in satellite imagery. (1/5)

One Russian general and member of the State Duma Defense Committee lied to the Russians that there were supposedly no mobilised people left at all, because they had all signed contracts, and the rest had already gone home, and supposedly no one in the Russian army fights against…

The US Congress finally passed the $95 billion National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which includes aid for Ukraine, Israel & Indo-Pacific allies, and invests in the US Defense Industrial Base.

But what is actually in the bill, and where does the money go?

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This is a good reminder that not everything sent to Ukraine will be effective. A lot of these systems have never been tested in action against a near-peer opponent, so it's inevitable that some will be defeatable. But better to find that out now rather than later...

I've actually noticed this trend on TikTok with our videos - they do relatively well on YouTube, Instagram and X, but fail miserably on CCP's spying app. In the second photo you can see views for our videos, on other platforms these ranged from 500 to 120 000.

'TikTok is more…

Note how TikTok systematically suppresses pro-Ukraine content...

The more you zoom out, the more the situation looks worse for Russia. Their long term prospects are really very bad. But when you zoom in to details, it flips and Russia looks like it is in a better position. The trick is balancing the two perspectives.

'No tranche of weapons can give Ukraine an easy path to victory—the expulsion of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, or the achievement of a position from which to negotiate a full Russian withdrawal.' But we're not at the fall of Ukraine either. thebulwark.com/p/the-ukraine-…

Wow. This is...profound. Google has become so #enshittified that limiting your searches to results before 2023 results in much higher quality results. Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK was right.

Tesla's freefall may be the result of a shoddy product sold by an unhinged, drug-addicted CEO who spends his days retweeting white supremacists. But it could also be DEI.

Well, well well. The deputy defense minister in charge of military housing, who owns multiple European residences and wears luxury goods, is arrested for taking bribes. The interesting thing about this of course is why now, and who did he irritate? /1 svoboda.org/a/zamministra-…

NEW: The Kremlin is conducting a concerted air and information operation to destroy Kharkiv City, convince Ukrainians to flee, and internally displace millions of Ukrainians ahead of a possible future Russian offensive operation against the city or elsewhere in Ukraine. 🧵(1/6)

Reminder: their goal isn't territory. Their goal is the elimination of Ukraine as a nation.

1/ QUICK TAKE on the Russian perceptions of a Ukrainian advantage in FPV drones: “An analysis of battlefield shows that the enemy is many times superior to the Russian military in the FPV use. At the same time, the Ukrainians have an increased FPV range - up to 30 km - due to the…

The Russian press has turned on US House Speaker Mike Johnson with insults such as “total scatterbrain”, “brainwashed” & “the look of a traitor.” Which shows that House approval of the $61bn aid package for Ukraine has struck a raw nerve in Moscow. #ReadingRussia

1/ On sheds, scrapyards and parking lots: short thread on some caveats about Russian military storage bases.

‘The newly authorized U.S. aid package should come just in time — and not a second too soon — to avert a Ukrainian collapse this year. It will provide both a materiel and a morale boost, signaling to Ukrainians they are not being abandoned. But more needs to be done.” Max Boot 🇺🇦🇺🇸…