Lauri Almann @LauriAlmann

@prof_preobr I have always thought that you are Boris Akunin :)

Meenutuseks. Soov Putiniga läbi rääkida (vastu meie liitlaste palveid) on Kadriorus ka varem pakitsenud. Kas keegi vôiks mulle seletada nagu 5-aastasele, et mis sellest kasu oli? delfi.ee/artikkel/85821…

@IlvesToomas 😂

@Oct7NeverForget Your arrow from Tartu to Tallinn happens to pass the deepest swamp in Estonia. Check your sources. Nobody takes that route. I have no idea why Ukrainians think that this is a good narrative to pedal.

The story of how the ICDS came to be begins not in 2006, when the centre was officially established, but in the late 1990s, when Estonia was taking its first steps toward NATO. @IlvesToomas @LauriAlmann @RiinaKaljurand @RKionka @AmbLepik @MerleMaigre icds.ee/en/the-foundin…

If you get this email watch out -- it's a phishing attempt. It's not from Fred Kempe and the link is "bridetvstreaming" (no I didn't open it)

🌍Top 10 countries in the world by unicorns per capita: 🥇 Estonia – 6.5 🥈 Israel – 3.4 🥉 Singapore – 3.0 4️⃣ Sweden – 2.6 5️⃣ Luxembourg – 2.0 6️⃣ Ireland – 1.9 7️⃣ Switzerland – 1.8 8️⃣ United Kingdom – 1.6 9️⃣ United States – 1.5 🔟 Netherlands – 1.2

Defence Cyber Marvel 2026 concludes today. Why is this exercise so important? How is the UK partnership with Southeast Asian countries imperative to tackling cyber threats? Watch this space for the full video! #DefenceCyberMarvel2026 #CyberSecurity

Questions I would ask at this stage: 1. Where is Rubio? Where is State? Rubio said the other day Putin's position is unchanged and suggested any prospect for peace was remote, an assessment echoed by Richard Moore. Rubio is Acting NSA, and so his lack of input here is telling. Is he purposefully letting Witkoff fly this plane into a mountain again, as he did in Alaska, or is he too busy with Venezuela to care? 2. Yermak's cozying up to Witkoff is quite revealing, as is the fact that Witkoff canceled his Turkey trip -- evidently because he was not acquainted with the full scale and scope of the Ukrainian corruption scandal now threatening to end Yermak's overlong political career. (There's a shocker: Witkoff was uninformed.) Yermak using Dim Philby to save his own hide by negotiating terms that aren't exactly transparent to all in Kyiv would be an ignominious sideshow to this whole circus, but wholly in keeping with Yermak's style. 3. Trump today said he is "disappointed" in Putin and vented about the difficulty of ending the war. This is an odd thing to say when you're an emotional toddler without a verbal filter and you have just handed the keys to the kingdom to Putin, according to anonymous sources quoted in the U.S. media. Does Trump even know what's in this 28-point plan? Does he know there is a 28-point plan? Does he care? 4. The administration has expended a great deal of energy of late telling the Europeans what to do: arm, pay up, impose 100% tariffs on India and China for importing Russian oil, further eliminate European dependency on Russian oil, do more sanctions on the shadow fleet, etc, etc. State just approved $105m in Patriot sustainment to Ukraine and $500m via PURL to the Nordics and Balts. Yesterday, Grynkewich allowed ATACMS to be fired into Russia and for the first time Kyiv acknowledged that development. The UK just resupplied Ukraine with more Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which it won't have done without Washington's approval. (The Kremlin now evidently insists on eliminating all long-range missiles from Ukraine's arsenal.) And yet... it's "Fuck the Europeans, we're going it alone with Moscow." Smiley is suspicious, Percy. This is something the U.S. simply cannot do even if it wanted to because there are limits to what an autocratic president can achieve (or perpetrate) unilaterally. I've commented before on Congressional approval for lifting CAATSA-certified sanctions on Russia, and how concomitant without EU sanctions relief the Russian economy does not rebound. Moreover, Republicans have rebuffed Trump on Epstein and Brazil and they're rightly worried how he's leading them into an electoral slaughterhouse in the midterms. Ukraine is not Gaza, and Russia is not Israel, where the U.S. had/has enormous leverage in the form of military aid and diplomatic cover. There is nothing concrete in any of the reporting on what Ukraine or Europe or indeed the U.S. might get out of this scheme, apart from mushy rhetoric on "security guarantees." NATO diplomatic and military planes must leave Ukraine? ZSU must reduce itself by 250%? All Donbas goes to Russia and Ukraine must legally certify the land grab, plus Crimea? This is parodically maximalist, invites more war in the immediate future, and has absolutely no chance of being agreed to in Kyiv or Brussels. Or Warsaw, which is preparing for the next war and will bear the brunt of this sell-out on its periphery, and which just suffered a Russian intelligence attack on its rail system. 5. Using the U.S. press corps to launder a FUBAR "framework" as some signed, sealed and delivered policy proposal when it may only be the brainchild of one braindead American diplomat and one desperate Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO would be very on brand for the Kremlin. And it would be very on-brand for the U.S. press corp to work itself into a lather over this: see the copy filed on the Budapest summit that wasn't. Already there are indications of comms manipulation. Dmitriev, for instance, claimed in Axios to have hung out with Witkoff for three days in Miami last month. Uh, no he didn't. This is easily checked in the open source and shown to be an exaggeration. What else might Dmitriev be exaggerating? And is it perhaps worth inquiring why a man described as a forgettable "propagandist" by the U.S. Treasury Secretary only a few weeks ago is now very chatty to Western journalists that peace is upon us and there's not a damned thing Ukraine can do about it?

Olen nüüd endamisi mõtiskelnud natuke veel selle Riigikoju "komisjoni” seni veel avaldamata rapordi üle. Mitte niivõrd sisu üle, kuna ma pole kogu asja lugenud (ega oskakski kommenteerida, kui see peaks olema peaasjalikult tehnilistest hädadest), vaid kuidas rapordiga toimiti. Kuna eestlased, aga eriti mõned komisjonäärid, on nn Soome kaitsemudeli fännid, küsisin endalt, kuidas Eduskuntas eks-kindralid (kui neid seal oleks) ajanuks asja? Esiteks, nad poleks ealeski sellest teinud pressisündmuse ja lasknud avalikuse ees väidetavat musta pesu õhutada ja juba enne rapordi avaldamist. Nad oleksid teadlikud, et mistahes provintsipoliitilisi plusspunkte nad “rapordiga” saavutanuks, annaksid nad samal ajal Eesti vaenlasele mitte plusspunkte, vaid trumpe, nii propagandistlikke kui strateegilisi, näidates millised on Eesti kaitse nõrgad kohad. Teiseks, kui nad oleksid nagu Soome endised kõrged ohvitserid, nad jaganuksid oma rapordi Kaitseministrile, Peaministrile ja Presidendile, aga mitte avalikusele. Nad taodelnuks Põhiseaduses sätestet Vabariigi Presidendi Riigikaitse nõukogult võimalust tutvustada oma raport ja arutada selle sisu üksikasju Nõukogu liikmetega. Riigikaitse nõukogusse kuuluvad Riigikogu esimees, peaminister, Riigikogu riigikaitsekomisjoni esimees, Riigikogu väliskomisjoni esimees, välisminister, kaitseminister, rahandusminister, siseminister, justiitsminister, majandus- ja taristuminister ning kaitseväe juhataja, ehk kõik, kes vastutavad riigikaitse eest. See toimuks kõik kinniste uste taga. Ilma kollase kärata saaksid kriitikat saanud asutused ja isikud seletada või isegi lausa möönda, et ühes või teises punktis on komisjonääridel õigus. Ja komisjonäärid, kes ju on samuti meie ühise Eesti Asja eest väljas, saanuksid ka möönda, et mõnes küsimuses mindi liiale. See kõik on nüüd võimatu. Jälle on meil nii olulises asjas nagu riigikaitses provintslik mudaloopimine ja plusspunktide otsimine. Oleme Eurooplased, saagem ka täiskasvanuks.

Military analyst Yigal Levin vividly explains that many Westerners like Mark Rutte don’t seem to comprehend that a Russian “lives in an invented world” and only understands strength. “NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte explains why they don't shoot down Russian planes— … 1/

Roy🇨🇦 @GrandpaRoy2

11 months ago

Israeli-Ukrainian military analyst Yigal Levin explains why Putin has convinced Trump to avoid a ceasefire. “Why did Putin speak out against a ceasefire at the meeting with Trump and propose an alternative in the form of signing a comprehensive agreement to end the war? 1/

84 669 2K 850K 309

@erikkannike A reminder of the kind of negotiations she probably had in mind:

Sidhant Sibal @sidhant

5 years ago

"Does Russia really wants a small tiny strip of Ukraine soil? Or integrate in the country, no this is nonsense..Putin is probably puting pressure, cz he knows he can do it & it splits the EU..but what he really wants is high level respect", says German Navy Chief in Delhi

306 775 2K 0 285

Il y a un truc qu’on oublie trop souvent. Il est pourtant omniprésent dans les discussions Trump-Poutine. Il détermine même largement le destin de l’Ukraine et de la Russie; donc celui de l’architecture de la sécurité européenne. C'est le brut. Le pétrole. Un p’tit thread.🧵⤵️

In response to journalists’ questions, I emphasised that yesterday, Ukraine carried out a brilliant operation, planned and executed independently by our side. Ukraine is making it clear: we are not going to surrender, and we will not accept any ultimatums. But we do not want war. We do not want to show our strength, we are forced to, because the enemy refuses to stop. And when we do show our strength, we do it justly, striking military targets. We show it not only to the Russian aggressors, but also to those of our allies who were once strong supporters but have started to waver. Trust in Ukrainians, and belief in Ukraine, has been restored. I believe the outcome of this operation is a very strong one.

While claiming to seek peace, Russia launched a deadly airstrike on Kyiv. This isn't a pursuit of peace, it’s a mockery of it. The real obstacle is not Ukraine but Russia, whose war aims have not changed.

C’est bien sûr grâce à la France que les Américains ne sont pas des sujets du Roi d’Angleterre…

Darius Rochebin @DariusRochebin

a year ago

"C'est grâce aux Etats-Unis que les Français ne parlent pas allemand aujourd'hui." La Maison Blanche ce soir. Nous revenons sur la crise ce soir dès 20h.

420 83 398 330K 49

Benjamin Franklin wearing a coonskin cap while being received by the French court. "Proper" attire at the time would have been a powdered wig, but Franklin enjoyed playing up his "rustic" American identity. On these trips, he asked for military support for newly independent US.

Keep your spirits up, folks :)) Ukraine has endured unimaginable trials, defied countless “nevers” and “impossibles,” and stunned the world time and again with its heroic resistance—words alone cannot capture it. We have gone from Russian troops storming Kyiv to ground-breaking Russian defeats, from fighting for survival to launching state-of-the-art Ukrainian rockets and drones that strike Russian oil depots and airbases every single night. We will overcome this as well. There is always a way forward for those who refuse to surrender. If we had listened to all the defeatists and doomsayers, Ukraine would have been wiped off the map long ago. Few nations have endured such a brutal path to freedom, independence, and the pursuit of happiness as Ukraine, but absolutely nothing is over. Everything will be alright! If we refuse to break and give the enemy the satisfaction of our despair and continue to act where action is needed. Greetings from the capital of the Free World 🇺🇦

Three recent Baltic Sea undersea cable damages by ship anchors have a 0.115% probability of occurring randomly in the last 18 months. This suggests the incidents may not be purely accidental despite the recent media coverage. /1

Kremlin 2015: "We will use nukes if NATO interferes in Syria" Kremlin 2024: "We need NATO's help to retreat from Syria" I remain a master strategist