#trump moscow project

[survinging-the-next-4-years]

Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to get Democrats killed for no reason. Please be safe out there. Since the leader of the Proud Boys and many of the most violent Capital Rioters were pardoned we are all in danger because of these people.

[osoanimation]

Elon Muskowrat Of To Mars

[mylionheart2]

ACTIVE MEASURES

Although find it hilarious that GOP senators voted against Rick Scott for senate majority leader in a secret ballot... Just a reminder that John Thune who was just elected republican senate majority leader was one of the 8 republican senators who spent the 4th of July in Moscow in 2018. All roads lead to Putin.

*Trump did NOT endorse Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader. 🤔🧐

[mariacallous]

In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.

In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.

On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains it says are linked to the Doppelganger campaign which violate US money laundering and criminal trademark laws.

“Today’s announcement exposes the scope of the Russian government’s influence operations and their reliance on cutting-edge AI to sow disinformation,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “Companies operating at the direction of the Russian government created websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”

The Treasury Department had previously sanctioned SDA and Gambashidze in March for its part in the Doppelganger campaign. But the court documents unsealed on Wednesday contain a treasure trove of documents and meeting notes from Gambashidze and his colleagues, outlining in unprecedented detail the goals and tactics that the Kremlin has been deploying in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US election.

The records also reveal the plan was discussed at the highest levels of the Russian government, with Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential executive office, playing a key role. The notes appear to show that President Vladimir Putin may have been updated on the campaign; in one meeting with Russian government officials, Gambashidze wrote that government officials told him they had “reported to the President about the project,” which the FBI agent who authored the affidavit said he took to refer to Putin.

The documents show that the orchestrators of the campaign targeted existing divisions within US society, using racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former president Donald Trump.

​​"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” Gambashidze writes in one document outlining his “guerrilla media” plan. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.”

The same document is full of racist and conspiratorial claims, including that Republicans are “victims of discrimination of people of color.” It adds that white middle-class people are being discriminated against with high inflation and rising prices, while “unemployed people of color end up being privileged groups of the population.”

And the goal of the campaign, from the beginning, was crystal clear: “To secure victory for [Donald Trump],” Gambashidze wrote in the Good Old USA Project planning document.

The Good Old USA plan openly admits that “none of the significant American politicians can be considered pro-Russian or pro-Putin,” and so rather than focus its efforts on trying to convince people that Russia is great, the plan called for promoting the idea that the US should be focusing its resources less on Ukraine and more on domestic issues, such as rising inflation and high gas prices.

“It makes sense for Russia to put a maximum effort to ensure that the Republican Party’s point of view (first and foremost, the opinion of Trump supporters) wins over the US public opinion,” the Good Old USA Project planning document reads. “This includes provisions on peace in Ukraine in exchange for territories, the need to focus on the problems of the US economy, returning troops home from all over the world, etc.”

As well as getting Trump elected, the campaign’s secondary goals included increasing the percentage of Americans who believe the US is doing too much to aid Ukraine to 51 percent, and reducing the percentage of Americans who have confidence in President Joe Biden down to 29 percent.

The plan lists a variety of audiences the campaign specifically wants to target, including residents of swing states, American Jews, “US citizens of Hispanic descent,” and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan.”

The document describes this category of gamers and chatroom users as the "backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet.” In recent months, the Trump campaign has embraced many of the most influential figures within these communities, including many who share deeply misogynistic rhetoric on a regular basis.

To spread their narrative, the plan called for the creation of YouTube channels that shared pro-Trump content as well as other viral videos (“music, humor, beautiful girls etc,” according to the documents) in order to appear at the top of search results for “US elections.”

Meanwhile, Gambashidze and his colleagues used Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to create community groups of Trump supporters, with one sample name given as “Alabama for America the Great.” The document also reveals that the Russians planned to use Reddit as a vector to disseminate their propaganda as it is a platform “free from democratic censorship.”

Gambashidze’s plan outlined how Doppelganger would create 18 “sleeper cells” on social media platforms in each of the swing states, which would “at the right moment, upon gaining momentum, become an important instrument of influencing the public opinion in critically important states and portals used by the Russian side to distribute bogus stories disguised as newsworthy events.” It’s unclear if these so-called sleeper cells were created and, if so, whether they are still present on the platform.

The campaign also used targeted ads on Facebook to not only promote their narrative but also to gain valuable insight into what messages were sticking and which were falling flat. “Targeted advertising in Facebook allows tracking reactions of users to the distributed material in real time and directing the psychological response group to contribute to comments thereof,” the document reads. “With the help of a network of bots the psychological response group moderates top discussions and adjusts further launches depending on which group was affected the most.”

One of the key aspects of the Kremlin’s campaign is also to engage with influencers. According to the FBI’s affidavit, Gambashidze’s company ​​“extensively monitors and collects information about a large number of media organizations and social media influencers.”

According to the Good Old USA project document, the Kremlin was seeking to work with influencers who are “proponents of traditional values, who stand up for ending the war in Ukraine and peaceful relations between the US and Russia, and who are ready to get involved in the promotion of the project narratives.”

Among the types of influencers listed as possible collaborators are actors, politicians, media representatives, activists, and clergymen.

The affidavit references one document maintained by the Social Design Agency, which is not included in the unsealed court documents, that contains a list of more than 2,800 people identified as influencers. While this list is global, US-based influencers account for around 20 percent of the accounts being monitored, including many US lawmakers, according to an analysis of the list by the FBI.

The Social Design Agency also maintains another list, again not included in the court documents, that tracks over 1,900 “anti-influencers” from 52 different countries, with US-based accounts. The FBI agent who authored the document assessed that “anti-influencer” refers to accounts which post “content that SDA views as contrary to Russian objectives.”

In a note from one of the meetings with Russian government officials discussing the campaign’s use of influencers, Gambashidze wrote: “We need influencers! A lot of them and everywhere. We are ready to wine and dine them.” Though no links have been confirmed, hours before the Doppelganger affidavit dropped on Wednesday, Tenet Media, an organization that features a slate of right-wing commentators, was alleged in an unsealed Department of Justice indictment to have been largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT.

The Social Design Agency operation appeared to be extremely well-run and well-resourced. There is a “project office” consisting of four teams that include one entire group dedicated to monitoring the social media posts from GOP lawmakers in order to generate ideas for topics to cover.

These would then be handed to a “text factory," with orders to whittle down the topics handed to them by the monitoring team to four to five main issues, along with eight to 10 basic posts for social media platforms and 40- to 60 comments to post under those social media posts for the network of bots. Another team was called the “manga editorial office,” which was charged with producing a daily output of three to four images, including memes. Finally, a video team was tasked with producing three to four videos each day.

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the document’s authors wrote. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

Antibot4Navalny, a group of anonymous Russian researchers who have been closely tracking Doppelganger’s activity, are doubtful that the affidavit will have a significant impact on the campaign’s activity.

“Frankly, I believe it's whack-a-mole as long as EU providers keep doing business with [Social Design Agency], and UK-registered shell companies keep helping SDA with its operation,” the researchers told WIRED, citing their own investigations earlier this year.

[fionapplespiano]

In 2000, y’all did the both sides are bad bullshit, voted for Ralph Nader, and Bush won.

In 2016, y’all did the both sides are bad bullshit, voted for Jill Stein, and Trump won.

When will y’all learn that this isn’t productive and isn’t getting us anywhere? Jill Stein especially has not interest in being president, her only interest is accepting money from Russia to run for president in order to siphon left-leaning votes from Kamala Harris, in order to ensure a Trump victory. This time around, she’s using the Palestinian cause in order to grift, which is especially disgusting.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the data from the swing states in the 2016 election:

Still unconvinced? Here’s some literature to read:

Note where it says she invests in RAYTHEON, yaknow the company that manufactures weapons that are being used in Gaza? So much for her being pro-Palestinian!

There’s only TWO options in this election, if you don’t vote for Kamala Harris, that only benefits Trump. And we know this because it’s already happened before. So please vote for Kamala Harris, because if we get Trump and Project 2025, we’re all going to burn, Gaza too.

[hellochildrenoftheatom]

Queer Jews Project Day 30 - Roberta Kaplan

Roberta Kaplan was born and raised in Ohio. In college, she spent a summer abroad in Moscow and discovered her passion for activism by helping Soviet Jews. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she rose through the ranks at top law firm Paul Weiss – making partner in seven years.

Roberta’s had a long and prestigious career, but I’m going to highlight two cases of hers. First of all, she represented Edie Windsor and took down the Defense of Marriage Act. And more recently, Roberta represented E. Jean Caroll in her defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. She won, forcing Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $88 million in damages.

Learn more about Roberta Kaplan here.

Queer Jews Project

[no-known-cure]

Ok I've got over it already

Europe needs to get its shit together and become sovereign from the US anyway, and a second Trump term while russia is invading our neighbour is as good an opportunity to finally get fucking Germany to treat this seriously as we'll get.

Mark Rutte is the head of NATO now and he knows what's up, as well as inexplicably having a good relationship with Trump.

I trust in Poland's current government to do what needs to be done, ie. play Mr Trump for the fool that he is by flattering his ego and business interests, while rightfully dunking on Germany, which Trump will also like.

Trump's victory hasn't been warmly greeted by russia or the russian propaganda machine yet, probably because their relationship seems to have cooled down somewhat in the last few weeks as Trump started to brag about bombing moscow (if only), so it's not a given that he'll be a godsend to russia.

The US has strategic interests in Poland which extend beyond party lines and have survived the first Trump term with no problems, eg. an American anti-missile system is finally going to open in Poland in the next few days, and the construction of that project began during the Bush administration, so these things seem to be independent of domestic US politics. Similarly, Poland is spending almost 5% of its GDP on the military now and has bought a shit ton of weapons for huge sums of money from the US to be delivered over the next decade, which is hardly something that Trump's administration will want to turn its back on.

In conclusion, I for one am rubbing my mature sissy cunt in the anticipation of big MAGA cocks as we speak.

[nicklloydnow]

“The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days.

Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all detainees in jails have been set free.

(…)

The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following the remarkably swift advance across the country.

(…)

It was the first time opposition forces had reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a yearslong siege.

(…)

The night before, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The city stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.

The rebels had already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive that began Nov. 27. Analysts said rebel control of Homs would be a game-changer.

(…)

The advances in the past week were by far the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army.

(…)

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said Sunday he does not know where Assad or the defense minister are. He told Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya early Sunday that they lost communication Saturday night.

He has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran has seen its proxies across the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that the United States should avoid engaging militarily in Syria. Separately, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said the Biden administration had no intention of intervening there.”

“A fast-advancing rebel offensive in Syria threatens to dislodge Russia from a strategic linchpin that Moscow has used for a decade to project power in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean and into the African continent.

It also challenges Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to portray Moscow as a flag bearer for an alternative global order to rival Western liberalism, and his defense of the Syrian regime as evidence of successful pushback against American dominance in the region.

(…)

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015 to prop up President Bashar al-Assad against an armed uprising prompted by the Arab Spring, giving it a role as an influential foreign power in the Middle East. It sought to leverage its relations with rival powers such as Iran and Israel, as well as Turkey and Gulf states, to mediate conflicts and claim status as a regional power broker.

(…)

Syria has partly been an ideological project for Putin. The intervention in Syria became a way for Russia to extend its vision of a multipolar world opposed to the Western liberal order, said Nicole Grajewski, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of a coming book on Russia’s relationship with Iran, including in Syria.

“To see Russian planes leave Syria as rebel forces move onward towards their air bases, and their assets in Damascus fall, this would be so devastating for the Russian image of itself,” she said. “It would be akin to a Saigon moment for them.”

Putin’s assistance was instrumental to Assad’s survival, and showed Moscow’s allies far beyond the Middle East that Russian intervention could help push back popular uprisings, said a former Russian official. African leaders began to invite Russia, and specifically contractors from the Wagner paramilitary group who also played a critical role in Syria, to help stabilize their regimes.

Syria holds significant strategic value for Russia as well. The Khmeimim air base near the coastal city of Latakia serves as a logistical hub for flights to Libya, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, where Russian private contractors and soldiers have operated for years.

A naval base in the port city of Tartus serves as the only replenishment and repair point for the Russian navy in the Mediterranean, where it has brought in goods by bulk through the Black Sea. Tartus has granted Putin access to a warm water port, something Russian rulers for centuries before him sought in the Middle East. The port could also potentially connect Russia to Libya—like Syria, a Soviet-era ally—where it seeks a naval base to extend its reach into sub-Saharan Africa. A rebel takeover of those Syrian coastal positions could jeopardize Russia’s global-power projection.

“Syria provided so many advantages at a low cost,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank and author of a book on Putin’s war in Syria. “Losing Syria would be a big strategic defeat that would reverberate beyond the Middle East. It would have global repercussions.”

(…)

“One way to see Putin’s ambition in Syria is as part of his larger imperial vision,” said Borshchevskaya. “That’s what Ukraine is, that’s what [the invasion of] Georgia was in 2008, and to some extent that’s what Syria was,” she said. “Now in 2024, Russia finally finds itself overstretched.”

(…)

The Russian intervention in the civil war turned the tide in Assad’s favor and helped Iran consolidate its military foothold all the way to the Israeli border. Western attempts to isolate Moscow and Tehran through sanctions have pushed them closer together.”

“For years, Syria’s complicated battlefields have been populated by shifting groups of militants battling a range of enemies, including each other, and proxies backed by outside powers. Iran and Russia have propped up the autocratic Assad regime for more than a decade, while Turkey and the United States have troops on the ground in areas outside government control, and each support local proxies.

News reports and videos posted on social media indicate U.S.-backed rebels, supported by American airstrikes, may now be battling Syrian government forces as part of renewed fighting in the east.

That U.S. backing means boots on the ground. Around 900 U.S. troops are deployed in Syria alongside private military contractors, in what one expert calls “arguably the most expansive abuse” of the war powers granted to the executive branch in the wake of 9/11 — and those troops have, on average, come under fire multiple times each week since last October, according to new Pentagon statistics obtained by The Intercept.

Since the war in Gaza began last year, U.S. forces have been under sustained attack by Iran-backed militants across the Middle East, with the Pentagon’s Syrian bases being the hardest hit. Since October 18, 2023, there have been at least 127 attacks on U.S. forces in Syria, according to Lt. Cmdr. Patricia Kreuzberger, a Pentagon spokesperson, and information supplied by U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM. On average, that’s about one attack every three days.

(…)

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer now with the International Crisis Group, said the ongoing bombardment of U.S. bases should prompt hard questions in America’s halls of power. “Why are U.S. troops in Syria? What is the mission? What is the endgame? And is this legally authorized?” are the questions that need answers, he said. “The administration doesn’t want to have that debate. Congress also seems perfectly fine avoiding it. And so, the legislative and executive branches are content to muddle along, avoiding their constitutional responsibilities — the need for congressional authorization — and really debate the merits of this conflict.”

THE U.S. MILITARY has been conducting operations in Syria since 2014. America’s bases there and in neighboring Iraq ostensibly exist to conduct “counter-ISIS missions,” despite the fact that the Pentagon concluded in 2021 that the Islamic State in Syria “probably lacks the capability to target the U.S. homeland.”

Around 900 U.S. troops — including commandos from Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant — and an undisclosed number of private military contractors are operating in Syria. In 2022, The Intercept revealed the existence of a low-profile 127-echo counterterrorism program in Syria targeting Islamist militants. Under the 127e authority, U.S. Special Operations forces arm, train, and provide intelligence to small groups of elite foreign troops. But unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which are primarily intended to build local capacity, 127e partners are dispatched on U.S.-directed missions, targeting U.S. enemies to achieve U.S. aims.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militant group based in the country’s northeast is America’s main proxy force in Syria. While the SDF fights Islamist extremists with U.S. support, it also battles Turkey and Turkish-backed militants. Turkey, America’s longtime NATO ally, opposes the SDF due to that group’s ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist militant group that both the Turkish and U.S. governments, among others, have designated a terrorist group.

(…)

The future of America’s escalating war in Syria may face renewed scrutiny early next year. President-elect Donald Trump showed antipathy to the U.S. war in Syria and withdrew U.S. forces from the north of the country in 2019, opening the door to a Turkish invasion.

“When Trump ordered the removal of U.S. forces from Syria in late 2018, there was a scramble within the government to try to figure out what that meant and whether there were ways to walk it back,” said Finucane, the former State Department lawyer. “The Pentagon was fine to pull out U.S. troops from al Tanf because there was really no counter-ISIS mission. But in his memoir, [Trump’s national security adviser] John Bolton said he wanted to keep troops there to counter Iran.”

For four years, experts say the Biden administration has continued this shadow effort aimed at Iran under the guise of a counter-ISIS mission, fending off several congressional efforts to force the removal of U.S. troops from Syria. Last year, a bid by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to compel the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria within 30 days also failed. “The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East,” Paul told The Intercept at the time. “Yet, 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria with no vital U.S. interest at stake, no definition of victory, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization to be there.” Those troops may be increasingly drawn into the Syrian civil war in support of their SDF allies.

“This is arguably the most expansive abuse of the 2001 AUMF in the history of the law,” said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy, referring to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “We know from Biden administration leaks that the U.S. presence in Syria was part of an anti-Iran proxy war strategy but after Congress started voting to remove troops, they cracked down on those leaks and they said it’s only about terrorism.”

(…)

U.S. troops have, however, been relentlessly attacked across the Middle East since last October. There have been at least 208 attacks against U.S. forces in the region — two in Jordan, 79 in Iraq, and 127 in Syria — according to Kreuzberger and CENTCOM. In addition to coming under fire about once every other day, U.S. troops have been killed or seriously injured in these attacks. In January, three U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 40 other personnel were injured in an attack on a base in Jordan near the Syrian border. Eight U.S. troops also suffered traumatic brain injuries and smoke inhalation from an August 9 drone attack on the Rumalyn Landing Zone in northeastern Syria.”

“Israeli ground forces advanced beyond the demilitarized zone on the Israel-Syria border over the weekend, marking their first overt entry into Syrian territory since the 1973 October War, according to two Israeli officials speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive developments.

(…)

Israeli forces took control of the mountain summit of Mount Hermon on the Syrian side of the border, as well as several other locations deemed essential for stabilizing control of the area.

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, appeared to confirm on Saturday night that Israeli forces had gone beyond a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying Israel had “deployed troops into Syrian territory,” although he did not elaborate further.

(…)

More recently, the Israeli military has been more explicit about striking sites and people there, saying it was targeting Hezbollah’s supply lines. But the deployment of ground troops beyond the demilitarized zone in Syria marks a significant shift in policy as the first overt entry of Israeli military forces into Syrian territory since the 1974 cease-fire agreement that officially ended the last war between Israel and Syria.

The Israeli Air Force over the weekend was also striking targets in Syria to destroy government military assets that could fall into the hands of rebel forces and are considered strategic threats by Israel, the two officials said.

(…)

The targets included small stockpiles of chemical weapons, primarily mustard gas and VX gas, which remained in Syrian possession despite prior agreements to disarm, according to the officials. The Israeli military also targeted radar-equipped batteries and vehicles of Russian-made air defense missiles, as well as stockpiles of Scud missiles, according to the two officials.

(…)

Israel captured the Golan Heights during the Middle East war of 1967 and annexed much of the territory in 1981. The rest is controlled by Syria. Most of the world views this area as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, though Donald J. Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty there in 2019 during his first term as president.”

[partisan-by-default]

Musk also shared Russia-aligned talking points outside the context of the conspiracy alleged in the recent indictment, according to a report Tuesday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Citing records from a Russian disinformation campaign, the news service said that an internet meme denigrating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and shared on X last year by Musk was made by a Moscow-based company called Social Design Agency. 

Musk did not respond to an email Tuesday asking about the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report and about his sharing of Tenet Media content. Representatives for X also did not respond to a request for comment about Musk or about X’s handling of Tenet content. 

In posts on X, Musk has appeared unconcerned about Russia’s influence operations. The day the Tenet Media indictment was announced, Musk reacted with the “tears of joy” emoji to another user’s unproven theory that the covert project may have backfired by causing infighting among conservatives. 

The day after the indictment dropped, Musk accused The Associated Press of pushing anti-Trump “propaganda” in its coverage of Tenet Media. And he posted in defense of the right-wing podcasters \ Tenet had retained, agreeing with another conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, that the men were deceived. 

[bushtruenews]

Trump partnered with mafia-linked Alex Shnaider

For Toronto Tower, Trump partnered with mafia-linked Alex Shnaider, who paid $100M to a Moscow fixer representing Kremlin-backed investors who funneled millions into the project. For financing, they used Firtash & Mogilevich's primary bank.

In 2007 Trump touted the financing for “our” Toronto project as “a testament to the strength of the Trump name." The $40M investment from his Russian-Canadian partner, Alex Shnaider, came from Kremlin-backed investors. Trump later denied any knowledge about the financing.

In 2010, Alex Shnaider authorized a $100M bribe to a Moscow fixer representing Kremlin-backed investors to facilitate the sale of his Ukraine steel mill for $850M, a deal financed by Russian-state bank VEB [chaired by Putin at the time], proceeds of which flowed to Trump.

Alex Shnaider's father-in-law, Boris Birshtein, is a longtime friend and business partner of Sergei Mikhailov, known as Mikhas the leader of Moscow’s most powerful organised crime syndicate: the Solntsevskaya Bratva [linked to Mogilevich]. Shnaider also knows Mikhailov.

Birshtein & Mikhailov co-founded laundering front Seabeco [where Shnaider worked]. In 1996, after Mikhailov's arrest [and a witness shot dead], Belgian police raided Birshtein & Shnaider’s Antwerp houses, prompting Shnaider to move back to Toronto.

Another close associate of Shnaider father-in-law Boris Birshtein is Russian mafia boss Alexander Mashkevich [ran Seabeco’s Moscow office], who, along with his Eurasia Group partners, financed several Trump-Bayrock projects, including Trump Soho.

ICYMI: According the the Sep 11 Commission Report, Alexander Mashkevich & his 2 Kazakh billionaire partners [AKA" the Trio"], are Russian/Israeli Mafia & Mashkevich [who attended Trump's inaugural & private inauguration dinner] is a mafia boss.

Birshtein [father-in-law & business assoc of Trump's Toronto partner Alex Shnaider] is also a friend of Oleg Deripaska, and in 2009, brokered a deal for the CIA to recruit Deripaska to 'rescue' Bob Levinson [missing in Iran] in exchange for a VISA.

Shnaider's mafia-linked father-in-law, Birshtein, claimed “no involvement in Trump Toronto either directly or indirectly,” however, a Cypriot company controlled by the director of Birshtein companies, was listed in 2016 as a Trump Toronto creditor.

In addition to Alex Shnaider's Kremlin-linked funds, financing for Trump's Toronto project came from Austria's Raiffeisen Bank [$243M]. According to diplomatic cables, Russian mafia boss Semion Mogilevich is a partner in Raiffeisen [the primary bank of Dmitry Firtash].

[cyberbenb]

Putin sends trusted general to fend off Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk

Russia sent one of its top generals, General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, to organize Russia’s defense in Kursk Oblast against a renewed Ukrainian attack, The Telegraph reported on Jan. 5.

Ukrainian troops recently launched a renewed offensive against Russian forces in Kursk Oblast in an apparent attempt to halt Moscow’s effort to retake the region before Donald Trump takes office and possible negotiations begin.

The Russian Defense Ministry alleged on Jan. 6 that Ukrainian forces were stopped, and their primary units were destroyed near Berdin, a settlement along a road leading northeast to the city of Kursk.

Ukraine has not commented on the claims and provided limited information on the operation.

General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has been serving as the Kremlin’s deputy defense minister and was tasked to head Russia’s border defenses and lead Moscow’s mercenary projects in Africa.

According to the Telegraph, he was sent to Kursk Oblast “hours” after Ukraine began its maneuvers on Jan. 5.

The general also survived an assassination attempt with life-threatening injuries while serving as the Kremlin-backed president of Ingushetia, one of Russia’s most unstable regions.

Ukrainian troops made a surprise incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024, capturing about 1,300 square kilometers of territory as a potential bargaining chip in future negotiations with Russia.

Although Kyiv has since lost control of half of the initially seized area, fighting in the region remains intense.

Ukraine war latest: Ukraine strikes 3 Russian air defense systems in single day; 3,800 North Korean troops killed, injured in Kursk Oblast

Key developments on Jan. 6: * Ukraine strikes 3 Russian air defense systems in single day, Navy claims * 3,800 North Korean troops killed or injured in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, Zelensky says * Ukraine’s position in Kursk Oblast important for possible negotiations, Blinken says * Zelensky offered…

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

[head-post]

NATO cannot defend Europe without US, Baltic leaders say

The leaders of three NATO nations urged allies to sharply increase defence spending, arguing that the alliance was “not ready” for military conflicts, The Independent reported.

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, the leaders of Latvia, Estonia and Finland called on the Alliance to stop “endlessly debating” the Russian threat and reinforce Europe’s defence capabilities instead. Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs stated:

We are not ready. That’s absolutely clear. We can’t keep simply hoping for a situation where the US remains much involved in Europe.

The three countries are the only NATO members that border Russia from the northern tip of Finland to the southeastern part of Latvia. They also spend the most on defence relative to their gross domestic product (GDP).

NATO requires its member states to spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP on defence. Until this year, only a third of countries had met the requirement, with experts still warning that spending is too low. In contrast, Russia is projected to spend 6.3 percent of its GDP on defence by the first quarter of 2025.

When Finland, along with Sweden, applied to join NATO in May 2022 and was subsequently admitted to the alliance, NATO’s border with Russia more than doubled. The Finnish armed forces were among the largest in Europe, comprising 280,000 troops who “can be mobilised and armed to the teeth in a week,” President Alexander Stubb said.

We don’t have this because we’re worried about Stockholm or London. We have this because we’re worried about Moscow.

Europe or Indo-Pacific

Trump’s return to the White House highlighted the poor arming of many European NATO members, especially in western Europe. The Republican also threatened that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” with those NATO members who failed to contribute their fair share to the military alliance.

This drew criticism for undermining NATO’s Article 5, which stated that an attack on one was an attack on all. However, Stubb backed Trump, urging the alliance to focus “more on capabilities rather than expenditure.”

Everyone needs to correct their defence deficit. I don’t think that we can have NATO without the United States.

While no European leaders stated that they believed in Trump’s withdrawal from NATO, they feared that the US president-elect would shift his attention to China and the Indo-Pacific region, including the defence of Taiwan.

Experts also noted that if the US moved its resources to the Indo-Pacific without giving Europe time to become more independent, Washington could be dragged back into the European conflict at a much greater cost. Stubb emphasised:

I think it’s in the vested interest of the United States to stay engaged [in Europe]. In any case, I believe that values-based alliances last much longer than interest-based alliances.

Europe’s need for more defence spending is based on support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. For his part, Trump promised to put an end to the prevailing Western philosophy of supporting Kyiv until Russia was completely ousted from Ukrainian territories.

Ukrainian issue

Trump also vowed to ensure an end to the war within 24 hours after assuming the office. However, many leaders voiced concern that this would entail forcing Ukraine to cede some of its lost territories to Russia.

Europe’s inability to defend itself, especially without the US, only emphasises its difficulties in continuing military support for Ukraine. Especially against the backdrop of a lack of visible military gains.

During a meeting in Brussels last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that it would be “impossible” to talk about the successful completion of hostilities if Ukraine received only European security guarantees. According to him, only US-backed guarantees may be enough to ensure sustainable peace.

Meanwhile, his Latvian counterpart Rinkēvičs stressed that Europe’s defence industry was not capable of producing the required volume of armaments.

I would say that currently one of the issues is not only that many nations are not ready to provide Ukraine with arms, it’s the defence industry that is not able to produce at the necessary level. We can provide Ukraine with what we can, but in many cases, we are already at the edge of what we have.

A UK government spokesman reiterated the commitment to Ukraine, pledging to “deliver £3bn a year in military aid to them for as long as it is needed.”

Read more HERE

[mariacallous]

One of the Western populist right’s enduring myths about President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is that it is steeped in traditional values, a bastion of virtue standing in opposition to an increasingly godless West. In the United States, the fascination with Russia as a supposed global center of conservative virtue has especially gained currency in MAGA world.

This image of Russia as a traditionalist’s paradise led former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson to offer both Putin and Russian far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin, one of Putin’s most vicious cheerleaders for genocide in Ukraine, the opportunity to expound their views to millions of Americans in a comfortable, uncritical setting. It is the reason that MAGA-aligned U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about Russia as a strong protector of Christianity. And it’s why former Trump administration National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has framed Putin as a defender of “family and God.”

The contrast between myth and reality couldn’t be starker. The truth is that Russia is one of the world’s least religious societies, with only 9 percent of Russians attending religious services at least somewhat regularly, according to a poll conducted in 2022 by the Moscow-based Levada Center. By contrast, nearly one-third of Americans are frequent churchgoers. Just 1.4 million Russians—a mere 1 percent of the population—attended the most recent Christmas services. The Russian state also persecutes Christians who do not adhere to Russian Orthodoxy, including Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, of course, anyone connected to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Nor is Russia a bastion of what true conservatives would consider traditional values. Based on data calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, the Russian abortion rate from 2015 to 2019 was nearly four times higher than that of the United States and more than twice as high as that of Ukraine. Russia also has the fourth-highest divorce rate in the world—60 percent higher than in the United States and more than 50 percent higher than in Ukraine. Those among the U.S. and European far right who project their own ideals onto Russian society ignore the obvious and copious evidence.

The false image of a god-fearing Russia is hardly accidental. It is the consequence of systematic efforts by Putin and his propagandists to craft talking points for the global right—an effort that has accelerated since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in 2022.

It wasn’t always so. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, a Russia shorn of most of its empire struggled with its post-communist identity. Under its first president, Boris Yeltsin, the country waded into the waters of a Russo-centric patriotism. But his chosen successor, Putin, supplanted this worldview by nostalgia for the former Soviet and Russian empires, as well as adulation of brutal autocrats such as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and Tsar Peter the Great.

Today, to both mobilize Russians for a bloody war and undermine support for Ukraine by appealing to the political extremes in the West, Putin and his ideologues have crafted a new mythology that depicts Russia as a bastion of traditional values rooted in religious faith.

This theme was front and center at Putin’s fifth inauguration as Russian president on May 7. In his address, he declared that “support for centuries-old family values ​​and traditions will continue to unite public and religious associations, political parties, and all levels of government.”

From their putative moral high ground, Putin and his propagandists in the Kremlin-controlled media have used the bully pulpit to rail against Western “woke-ism,” political correctness, and secularism, earning admiration among right-wing populists in the West. By projecting Russians and the Russian state as deeply religious and steeped in tradition—and by denouncing the Western establishment for its supposed attacks on traditional values—Kremlin propaganda has made serious inroads among cultural and religious conservatives in the United States and elsewhere.

This has helped create some measure of sympathy for Russia’s war against Ukraine among certain segments of the far right, which see Putin as a powerful voice on their side of the culture wars.

Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia Today, the state media conglomerate responsible for most of Moscow’s global propaganda, crystallized the postulates and far-reaching ambitions of Russia’s traditionalist propaganda during a television appearance in February.

Speaking on the heels of Carlson’s fawning chat with Putin, Simonyan saw a major opportunity for Russia to find fellow travelers and new allies among those disgruntled by secularization in the West. Unlike Ukraine and its Western backers, which she called adepts of “satanism,” she described Russia as “the city on a hill” to which the world’s traditionalists can now flock to escape their stifling secular societies. She declared that traditionalist messaging is the “beacon of a wonderful idea” whose appeal can be likened to that of communism during the Soviet era. Russia, she continued, might even counter its severely shrinking population by attracting disgruntled traditionalists from around the world as immigrants to a new promised land of traditionalism.

To this end, the Kremlin announced a new decree on Aug. 19 that eases residency rules for refugees from countries where “traditional values” are under attack from “neoliberalism” and other supposed secular ills.

Aging Russian kleptocrats such as Putin, who formerly served in the security services of the atheist Soviet state, engage in performative religion at most. As the investigations conducted by the late Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny documented, the Russian ruling elite, including Putin himself, is obscenely wealthy and deeply corrupt. But state media outlets diligently portray them as god-fearing believers, generous patrons of monasteries, supporters of religious media, and sponsors of newly built churches—all paid for with money they have stolen from the Russian people.

These performative good works are applauded by the security service operatives who control the upper reaches of the Russian Orthodox Church. Purged and brought under complete state control under Stalin, the church has consistently promoted the aims of Soviet and now Russian policies. It is a vocal supporter of Putin’s war against Ukraine.

At the apex of performative piety stands Putin. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, born Vladimir Gundyayev and believed to be a former security services operative, has lavished praise on Putin for being “truly the first Orthodox president” of Russia. The link between Putin’s proclaimed religiosity and something approaching a divine right to rule Russia has also become part of the new ideological canon—back to the roots, if you will, of Russian Orthodoxy as an imperial church.

“May God help you to continue to carry out the ministry that God himself has entrusted to you,” Kirill said during Putin’s inauguration in May. Given the long-standing collusion between the Kremlin and a compliant church, it is little wonder that religious leaders actively support Putin’s war and encourage Russia’s young to lay down their lives.

To mask the degradation of spiritual and religious life, Russia has built a vast Potemkin village of new churches. Around 30,000 new parishes have been added in the post-Soviet era, averaging nearly three every day since 1991. Given Russians’ negligible interest in religion, they stand largely empty.

Simonyan’s comparison of Putin’s traditionalist, pseudo-Christian posturing with the global appeal of communism is apt in ways that she did not intend. Like communism, whose façade of equality and social justice masked mass repression and the emergence of privileged, all-powerful elite, today’s Russia has little patience for moral and ethical principles. Instead, the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church serve the exigencies of a kleptocratic mafia that rules over a deeply damaged, militaristic, and highly unequal society.

Indeed, in time, Russia’s newest state ideology is very likely to become another God That Failed—the title of a landmark 1949 book in which six Western intellectuals broke with communism, declaring that it was just a cover for a new form of dictatorship.

For the moment, none of this matters to the Western populist right, which has blithely ignored the carnage that Putin has inflicted on Ukraine. Nor will Russia’s performative religiosity put those Westerners off; their projection of virtue onto Putin’s Russia has become too important a part of their cynical politics. If your enemy is the West’s liberal and tolerant society, then the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

[gurutrends]

Vladimir Putin abandons Arctic gas production facility

The Belokamenka project, which was finished last year with ambitions to employ 15,000 people, has been abandoned due to Western sanctions. This partial shutdown is a big setback for Vladimir Putin and the Russian economy, which depends significantly on money from gas and oil exports. Separately, Moscow has confirmed that Vladimir Putin would not attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration next…

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

I honestly don't understand Ze and Andriy at the moment and their insane dick sucking of Trump. They can't be that stupid to think that Trump is an acual ally of Ukraine, right?!??? So what's with all the sweet talk and sucking up on Trump and his team, some of them hardcore Russian propagandists??? There isn't one interview right now, or tweet, where Ze and Andriy are not elaborately talk positively about Trump and his Ukraine support (????????). Dudes...he literally tried to blackmail you some years ago. Don't be so fucking stupid! Trump is even worse now AND Elon Moscow is behind him.

They're neither stupid nor are they underestimating Trump and his minions.

The reason they're praising Trump so much try to get on his good side is fairly simple: They want to survive as well as want Ukraine to survive. And in order for that they need the support of the US, at least until Europe finally stepped up it's game or they got a just peace. And there is only one way to get US support - to be on Trump's side and be his new favourite little project. As well as the new favourite toy of his minions. So they try to stroke his ego and feed his narcism as much as possible and pretend he is the biggest and greatest President of all time and could be, if he is a hardliner against Russia and supports Ukraine and getting them a just peace.

Of course they still know with what kind of people they deal. Ze knows first hand after the blackmail and Andriy dealed with Trump and his people during Trump's first term. And of course they're well aware about the possible Russian spies and absolute Russian mouthpieces.