Putin is said to be ready to accept a 30-day ceasefire.
x
👀 I spoke to several European politicians and they said that Putin is urgently preparing to announce a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine — decision expected within the next three days. The reason? Meeting with Trump in Saudi Arabia.
❓Could the “deal of the century” be on the horizon?
[image or embed]
— Savchenko Volodymyr (@savchenkoua.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Kudos to whoever created this. But it needs some Chinese golf carts and scooters.
What’s with his Eddie Munster hair style?
This kid is probably on his way to the front today.
Meanwhile, in Belarus, the goat decided he’d had enough of this shit.
And WTF is this? Yakutia is way the hell over in Russia’s Far East.
The battleship is my favorite.
Ukraine alleges a Hungarian spy network was operating in western Ukraine.
x
❗️❗️The Security Service of Ukraine has exposed the first-ever spy network of Hungarian military intelligence in Ukraine, which in Transcarpathia collected information about the defense of the region, the mood of local residents and the possible reaction to the introduction of Hungarian troops
[image or embed]
— 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@militarynewsua.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 2:08 AM
x
⚡️Hungary allegedly expels two 'spies' working under diplomatic cover at Ukraine's embassy, Hungarian FM says.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
[image or embed]
— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) May 9, 2025 at 9:10 AM
We have a winner of a Darwin Award, Russian edition.
Instead of playing Ukraine’s national anthem, the speaker drones should play something sure to force the Russians to flee — the Barney and Friends theme song on a continuous loop day and night.
If this was a Ukrainian drone, it didn’t pack much of a punch.
Russia is cranking out an average of three Iskanders a day. Sanctions obviously leak more than a Pete Hegseth conference call.
x
The Economist: Russia is churning out munitions at extraordinary speed
Russia is churning out over 1,400 Iskander ballistic missiles annually while planning significant military expansion along NATO’s borders, according to intelligence reports
euromaidanpress.com/2025/05/09/t...
[image or embed]
— Euromaidan Press (@euromaidanpress.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 5:38 AM
This is a great story about how Russians — both military and civilian — go to great lengths and are willing to pay exorbitant bribes and endure self-inflicted wounds to either avoid going to Ukraine or to get the hell out of there.
x
Many Russians are willing to pay large sums of money to avoid being sent to the front in Ukraine. But buying your way out of going to war is getting increasingly difficult. Meduza special correspondent Lilia Yapparova reports. meduza.io/en/feature/2...
[image or embed]
— Meduza in English (@meduza.io) May 8, 2025 at 3:58 PM
The story quotes a Russian soldier named Nikolai who was wounded last year and wound up in the hospital.
Nikolai’s assault group had been tasked with making their way to the line of contact, which ran through the village’s industrial zone. As Ukrainian drones buzzed overhead, they dashed from basement to basement, trying to reach a Russian “strongpoint” manned by another battalion that had been fighting in the area for six months.
The “strongpoint” turned out to be an underground pipe. Likely intended for draining wastewater, it measured 1.5 meters in diameter (roughly five feet) — and the soldiers sheltering inside looked like “skeletons covered in skin,” Nikolai recalls. “[They were] dirty, emaciated. They had survived [by drinking] the stagnant water that flowed into the pipe; they brewed cigarette butts in it instead of tea. Occasionally, they’d run out to a field and steal grain. They ate the coffee we’d brought with us with spoons and poured our entire packet of sweetener into their mouths.”
The Russians had been unable to rotate the soldiers or deliver them provisions: drones circled overhead constantly, and Ukrainian fortifications were “so close that you could hear voices,” Nikolai recalls. His assault group found themselves trapped too: their first escape attempt ended in a mortar attack that injured Nikolai and killed one of his fellow soldiers. “[It was] the first death I saw,” he says.
Nikolai was going to be sent back to the front. He was desperate to avoid that.
That’s when Nikolai began devising a plan to sustain a shrapnel wound serious enough to get him sent home. “At first I thought about [using] a grenade,” he says. “You can hide around the corner of a building, toss the grenade, and expose only your leg to the blast — so as not to kill yourself accidentally.”
Nikolai and his friend — who was in on the plan — ultimately deemed the grenade option too dangerous. Instead, he began working on a homemade “shrapnel cartridge” for a Kalashnikov, filling a bullet casing with gunpowder and the tips of rusty nails. “Now I have 12 pieces of these ‘fragments’ in my leg, and it’s festering,” he says.
Shooting each other in the leg was “very scary — but not as scary as staying there,” Nikolai says (referring to the front). The homemade bullet hit him in the calf. “I lifted my trouser leg and there was blood, [muscle] spasms, and my whole leg was covered in bumps,” he recalls. “But it was a good argument for evacuation to Russia.”
So as not to arouse suspicions about their “shrapnel wounds,” Nikolai and his comrade threw a grenade into their dugout and then radioed it in as a Ukrainian drone attack. Nevertheless, their story wasn’t particularly believable. “People aren’t fools. A self-inflicted wound like that leaves traces of gunpowder on your legs,” Nikolai explains. The soldiers began to negotiate with the regiment’s medics as they were being taken to the hospital. “We admitted right there in the car that we’d shot ourselves and something needed to be done,” he recalls.
The medics scolded Nikolai and his friend for failing to warn them in advance. Then, they pulled over at an ATM. The two soldiers withdrew 300,000 rubles each (about $3,600) as a bribe. The examination at the hospital “went smoothly,” Nikolai recalls, but instead of being sent to Russia, he was transferred to a military medical company in the Luhansk region for treatment. (His friend was soon sent back to the front.)
Another 1,300 men suffer to fulfill Putin’s delusions of imperial grandeur.
Don’t drink the tea, Xi.
Ukraine is an exporter of food even after being invaded and partially occupied. Russia has to import potatoes from Egypt.
A statue of Stalin anywhere in Ukraine is just obscene.
Romania’s Trump.
x
⚡️ Romanian far-right leader Simion demands Ukraine repay aid, opposes further support.
George Simion, leader of Romania's far-right AUR party, called on Ukraine to compensate Bucharest for its military and humanitarian aid.
[image or embed]
— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) May 9, 2025 at 2:19 AM
The League of Nations UN enjoyed a Russian concert.
The cult of suffering for the Motherland starts early.
Dumb and Dumber
Audio on.
x
She was playing with passion.
I saw her today on the stairs of the Actor’s House.
Initially, the building was a Karaite Jewish synagogue, or kenesa, constructed between 1898 and 1902.
It was closed after the 1917 revolution. Since 1981, the building has been used for concerts and performances.
[image or embed]
— Yaroslava Antipina (@strategywoman.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 10:13 AM
