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The New Yorker is on it some three weeks after my op-Ed in WSJ
a reconquista in Europe, a white-on-white colonialism is the way to understand Putin’s war. newyorker.com/news/essay/the…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
A Finnish court has sentenced the Russian captain and Azerbaijani boatswain of the cargo ship Fitburg to prison for damaging undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland.
Captain Andrei Maksimenko received 3 years and 6 months, while boatswain Vusal Majidov was sentenced to 2 years and 10 months.
According to prosecutors, the vessel dragged its anchor along the seabed for 130 kilometres, damaging two telecommunications cables and endangering critical infrastructure.
Both men were ordered into immediate custody and must pay compensation for the damage.
Finally, some accountability for attacks on Europe's critical infrastructure.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Now on the third day pf no light, electricity, heating, or water here in Kyiv. Hundreds of pounds worth of food thrown out, power banks now empty, unable to work, shower or use nebuliser machine, and thousands of homes are in the same position due to Russian attacks on energy facilities. Still zero updates from Ukrainian officials.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
🇺🇦💔 BUCHA, UKRAINE.
Russian occupiers reportedly held 25 girls and young women, aged 14 to 24, in a basement in Bucha and repeatedly raped them. Nine became pregnant.
“Russian soldiers told them that they would rape them to such an extent that they would not want sexual contact with any man in order to prevent the birth of their Ukrainian children,” Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmila Denisova told the BBC.
These horrifying allegations describe sexual violence used as a weapon of war against Ukrainian women and girls.
mykhailorohoza.substack.com
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Nobel economist Acemoglu: China is 6 to 16 months behind the US in large language models.
But China is much more active in putting AI into production. It invests far more in robotics and has the engineers to do it.
The US focus on AGI has slowed the spread of AI. 1/
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Your "social suicide," Drew, was becoming a propagandist hack specializing in blatantly dishonest material (like, most recently, the bit about El-Sayed supposedly saying it's ok if girls see trans athletes' penises in the locker room because they see stuff on the Internet)
I’m pissed off at Republican corruption and incompetence because I committed social suicide to support right wing politics but too many elements of the right are consistently retarded, corrupt and incompetent
If you ask people to commit social suicide you should at least commit to the highest standards of ethical and moral probity - no dodgy land deals with weird third world dictators, no crypto pump and dumps, no fucking Polymarket insider trading, no stock flipping
For fuck sake
The goal is to save Western civilization, preserve our history and culture and inheritance, nothing else should matter next to that.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
🚨 42 bodies have been pulled from the ruins of a school in Komyshuvakha, flattened by a brutal Russian airstrike on Nov 2, police report.
Forensics are racing to identify the dead.
Up to 33 people remain buried beneath the concrete as rescue efforts press on.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
I say this with no love for Ossoff or the Democratic Party, but he is correct about all of this and it is going to be a devastating message going forward.
It's one of the reasons I've been chimping about our Russia policy for the last couple months—it's been objectively corrupt and disgraceful. Trying to turn Zelenskyy into a scapegoat at the end was the cherry on top.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
CHINA + HORMUZ
China’s involvement in the Hormuz discussion may be more important than it appears.
Xi Jinping has now offered Chinese help in addressing Gulf security and restoring safe navigation while meeting Oman’s Sultan.
For decades, Beijing enjoyed an extraordinary strategic bargain: China imported enormous quantities of Gulf energy while the United States carried much of the cost of protecting the maritime system that delivered it.
That model becomes harder to sustain as China’s global interests grow.
A country that becomes a global trading power eventually develops global security interests.
The interesting question is therefore not whether Chinese destroyers arrive in Hormuz tomorrow.
It is whether the Gulf crisis marks the beginning of something bigger: China’s gradual transition from consumer of the American-built maritime order to one of its security providers and potential architects.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
The Ukraine negotiations have already begun. They are simply being conducted with drones.
Russia launched more than 300 drones at Ukraine overnight. Moscow claims Russia simultaneously intercepted hundreds of Ukrainian drones.
Meanwhile U.S.-mediated talks are scheduled for November 10–11 in Abu Dhabi.
These are not separate events.
Both sides are trying to shape the military and economic facts before entering the negotiating room: energy infrastructure, logistics, air defence, industrial capacity and the ability to absorb punishment.
This is why the familiar distinction between “war” and “diplomacy” can be misleading.
In most serious negotiations, battlefield pressure becomes bargaining leverage.
The question going into Abu Dhabi is therefore not only what Russia and Ukraine are prepared to concede.
It is what each side believes it can still obtain by continuing the war.
Putin is under a lot pressure domestically and more sanctions are coming his way as changes are on the way
apnews.com/article/ukraine-r…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
AMERICA’S DRONE PROBLEM
This may be the most important defence statistic of the week:
The United States has accumulated roughly 500,000 drones.
Ukraine expects to manufacture 8–10 million this year.
The comparison tells us something profound about how warfare is changing.
Ukraine increasingly treats drones like ammunition: manufacture them rapidly, modify them constantly, lose them frequently and replace them immediately.
Western procurement was built around exquisite platforms expected to operate for decades.
Those two industrial models are colliding.
The Pentagon can design exceptionally sophisticated drones. But a prolonged war rewards something different as well: enormous production capacity, short development cycles and the ability to incorporate battlefield lessons almost immediately.
The lesson from Ukraine may be uncomfortable for Western defence ministries.
In modern warfare, manufacturing speed itself has become a weapons system. Brilliant and timely read by @heathersomervil
wsj.com/politics/national-se…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Great job and as a result you will gain more subscribers. Shows how relevant you became.
Thank you for your work!
Since last night, @KyivIndependent has been under a hacker attack, most likely a Russian one.
Last night, hackers gained access to our website’s CMS (admin panel) and to one of the services we use to send our newsletters. They used this access to send an email to addresses in our subscriber database and to publish similar posts on our website.
The messages were in Russian, and their content resembled the message hackers placed in the Ukrainian state air raid alert app when they breached it three days ago. We can’t confirm that the attacks came from the same source, but they share some common features.
We removed the posts from the website immediately, sent our subscribers an email explaining what had happened, and identified and closed the vulnerability they used.
This afternoon, a second wave happened. This time, the hackers sent emails in both Russian and English.
Our team is now fully focused on dealing with this as quickly as possible and closing every possible vulnerability.
Importantly, payment and bank information of people who support us is NOT at risk — we don’t store it, they are stored by secure third-party systems.
So far, there is no reason to believe the hackers gained access to anything other than the admin panel and the email-sending service, but we are continuing to check.
This is the first breach of its kind in the almost five years the Kyiv Independent has been operating.
Thank you to everyone who wrote to us to let us know about the emails, and I’m sorry this happened.
We are receiving a lot of support from our readers and a lot of offers of help. Thank you for that as well.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Where the fvck is the civilized world? Where the fvck is the outrage, where is the #media?
The biggest war in Europe since #WW2 and the world is quiet!
@cnn @bbc #Ukraine
Search and rescue operations have now been underway for three days at the site of the Russian strike on a school in the settlement of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region. The Russians used nine aerial bombs. They first struck people who had come to receive humanitarian aid, and then first responders and police officers who arrived at the scene.
All necessary services are involved. It is an extremely difficult operation, very challenging, and it is being carried out under virtually constant threat of new Russian strikes. As of now, 40 people have been reported killed. Unfortunately, some bodies have not yet been identified. My condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed. More than 30 people may still be under the rubble.
Unfortunately, there has been very little reaction from the world to this insane attack. But it, like thousands upon thousands of other war crimes Russia has committed against Ukraine and Ukrainians, demands a strong response. Evil always goes further if it is left unanswered. We count on a response – Ukraine needs air defense support right now. I am grateful to the partners who are taking such steps.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
“Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the famously anti-Trump GOP lawmaker, told CNN he plans to trigger a vote to impeach Hegseth when Congress returns next week — and multiple GOP sources said they expect it to pass.” cnn.com/2026/11/04/politics/…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
Ukraine opens a treason case against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's former press secretary
Ukraine's security service and prosecutors named Iuliia Mendel a treason suspect in absentia on 3 November. They say her statements in foreign media and on social media discredit Ukraine and justify Russia's war.
Prosecutors say Russian state and pro-Kremlin media actively used her words in propaganda. Mendel, who lives abroad, responded on X that the case is about freedom of speech, not collaboration.
Under martial law, treason carries 15 years or life in prison, plus confiscation of property. The move comes seven weeks after Zelenskyy sanctioned her.
🔗 euromaidanpress.com/2026/11/…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
If Rubio and/or Wiles get booted, the alternatives are even worse.
One of them is Soviet-born Sergey Gorokhovsky, who claims that the Maidan uprising was a CIA-orchestrated coup and is generally extremely hostile towards Ukraine.
But we can expect more nominations like this from the most pro-Russian administration in US history.
NEW: With a Trump admin reshuffle expected, confidante Sergio Gor is expected to rise. 10 sources says he's laid the groundwork for months, with potential posts ranging from White House chief of staff to top roles at State - even Rubio's!
w/ @EricM_Katz:
washingtonsun.com/administra…
Melik Kaylan retweeted
BREAKING: Trump's deal with Putin to import Russian diesel to the US is unraveling, with 3 oil tankers initially destined for the US now abruptly veering off course, per FT.
One tanker switched its destination to Brazil, while another has turned into the Mediterranean and is signaling "for orders," meaning the cargo has no confirmed buyer or destination port.
A third tanker is also signaling "for orders."
These are the same 3 oil tankers that were expected in the US around November 7-11, the first wave of cargoes.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
This is the first time in a long time that Israel has explicitly blamed Russia for anything happening in Ukraine. That’s a positive shift, but Ukraine needs more than just words (and the occasional electric generator). Give Ukraine air defense, already. They are being massacred.
Deeply saddened by the horrific news from Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, where 40 people were killed in a Russian attack. Among the civilian sites struck was a school serving as a humanitarian aid distribution centre. Many people are still missing.
We condemn this attack and extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed. We wish the wounded a swift and full recovery.
Melik Kaylan retweeted
This is bad. Sergio Gor (aka Sergei Gorokhovsky / Сергей Гороховский), who has been previously identified as a potential security risk, is now being considered for WH Chief of Staff or even Secretary of State!
NEW: With a Trump admin reshuffle expected, confidante Sergio Gor is expected to rise. 10 sources says he's laid the groundwork for months, with potential posts ranging from White House chief of staff to top roles at State - even Rubio's!
w/ @EricM_Katz:
washingtonsun.com/administra…