Cumbrian lad, down South, selling a few cars.
Calvert, England
Joined November 2009
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Fran Bleasdale retweeted
Imagine the first week after a ceasefire in Ukraine. The signatures are dry. The cameras have gone home. European leaders are congratulating one another.
Then a drone hits a Ukrainian power station.
Moscow denies responsibility. Kyiv produces evidence. European governments demand consultations.
Who investigates? Who decides? And what happens before the next drone arrives?
That is the moment when you discover whether the negotiators designed a peace agreement or merely arranged a ceasefire ceremony.
The real test of peace is not the handshake. It is the first violation.
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Delusional comments from Baroness Coffeyon @BBCNewsnight about keeping Trump committed to Ukraine winning. Nonsense stuff.
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
Witkoff to Putin: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian -- you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
Eighteen Ukrainian soldiers died fighting for the U.S. in Iraq. Many more Ukrainian pilots and contractors died in Afghanistan.
Zero American soldiers fought for Ukraine.
.@POTUS: "We've given a lot to Ukraine. They've given nothing to us. Remember that."
The Cumbrian top 20, great to see my very first club @DunnerholmeGC in at number 15, less surprising to see @sillothgolfclub as the top course.
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
My latest @TheStudyofWar report. Ukraine has regained the operational initiative on most key battlefield directions. Russia’s summer offensive has failed. Russia’s fall offensive is likely to fail as well.
- Ukraine’s 2026 battlefield progress is not transient or accidental — it is a result of Ukraine’s military maturation.
- The design of Russia’s ballistic missile and jet-powered drone campaign against Ukraine, alongside its growing kinetic attacks against NATO, aims to drive Ukraine and its allies into a reactive stance and distract them from seizing a hard-won opportunity to hold the strategic initiative against Russia.
- The Kremlin’s offer to supply diesel to global markets is a cognitive warfare effort that aims to disrupt the momentum of the effective pressure campaign against Russia’s energy sector.
- Ukraine’s partners must learn what is arguably the most important lesson from this war – recognizing (and denying) the Kremlin’s strategy of disrupting Ukraine’s and its partners’ initiative. Ukraine’s partners must help accelerate the scaling of countermeasures to Russian jet-powered drones. Ukraine’s partners must also proactively resource Ukraine’s battlefield momentum. European funding needs to support Ukraine’s military leadership’s ability to plan operations well into the next year in order to sustain and grow the effects of Ukraine’s 2026 progress in its ground war. The US and Europe must also resource Ukraine’s deep strike campaign against Russia’s defense industrial and energy sectors.
-The Kremlin is vigilant about Ukraine and its partners holding the initiative and seeks to deter and disrupt it at all costs. The US and Europe can either deny the Kremlin’s strategy or risk a greater war with greater escalation risks.
SPECIAL REPORT: The United States and Europe risk squandering the best opportunity since 2022 to alter Russia’s trajectory toward a longer and larger war. Ukraine currently has the best chance of seizing the strategic initiative against Russia since December 2022, while simultaneously facing the greatest risk to its momentum.
Russia’s ballistic missile and jet-powered drone campaign against Ukraine, alongside its growing kinetic attacks against NATO states, aims to drive Ukraine and its allies into a reactive stance and distract them from seizing a hard-won opportunity to hold the strategic initiative against Russia.
The Kremlin’s offer to supply diesel to global markets is a cognitive warfare effort that aims to disrupt the momentum of the effective pressure campaign against Russia’s energy sector.
The Kremlin is vigilant about Ukraine and its partners holding the initiative and seeks to deter and disrupt it at all costs.
The United States and Europe can either deny the Kremlin’s strategy or risk a greater war with greater escalation risks.
All a bit cryptic from Bezos, but it’s inevitable that some of these guys are going to see the writing on the wall for Trump and start to abandon him over the coming weeks and months.
🚨 BREAKING:
Bezos: "When you're at the polling station thinking about who to vote for, consider this: if a politician picks villains and points fingers at them, maybe it means they don't have a solution.
If an executive at one of my companies did nothing but point fingers and blame people instead of addressing the root cause and finding a real solution, we'd get rid of them quickly."
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
As Trump betrays Ukraine, everyone should remember that Ukraine supported the U.S. in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Army reports that more than 5,000 Ukrainian troops served in Iraq over successive rotations. Ukrainian blood was spilled to support the U.S.
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
People need to understand that the only reason Trump backed down on SpaceX and Starshield so quickly is that he got push back right away, politically and from Ukraine. He is a bully and a coward. Stop criticising Zelensky for standing up to him.
Spineless, ignorant and incredibly stupid.
Ukraine has “already lost” the war against Russia, says @Alice_Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party, which is leading German opinion polls. She told @zannymb, that Germany should pull the plug on support for Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Watch the full interview at 6pm London time (1pm in New York): bit.ly/4yrcX9s
Fran Bleasdale retweeted
Just so you understand the scale of betrayal: first, our "partners" didn't warn Ukraine about the incoming ballistic missiles, so the air raid alert wasn't activated before impact, robbing people of their chance to survive.
Then, Starlink was restricted to stop working at speeds above 100 mph. This renders useless, first and foremost, our interceptor drones. It doesn't limit our ability to attack inside Russia, it limits our ability to stop another apartment building or school full of civilians from being hit.
Wow, just wow.
