The black leather coat is a nice touch, reminding everyone of the good old days when the NKVD made sure production plan quotas were fulfilled.
Something to take note of.
If you are not familiar with the German constitutional order and unwritten rules: the president is the representative head of the state, is not to be involved in party politics, has next to no active role in active politics besides his representative functions, and is looked at as a moral authority.
https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1584909209493274626
From the Guardian liveblog:
Ukraine fears Russia planning false flag attack amid Kremlin’s ‘dirty bomb’ claims
Ukraine has said that persistent Russian claims that Kyiv plans to detonate a dirty bomb made it look as though Moscow itself planned to conduct a false flag operation, and that Ukraine has never had any plans to develop a dirty bomb.
Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told a news conference that experts from the UN nuclear watchdog would soon be arriving in Ukraine and receive full access, and he called on Moscow to demonstrate the same transparency as Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Referred to in a meeting yesterday, the following was recommended if you want to read up on 
's energy infrastructure, including some summaries of their natural gas infrastructure.
Preserving Ukraine’s Electric Grid During the Russian Invasion
Thomas S. Popik
published in
Belarus presents its latest developments in armoured vehicle technology.
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1584960256798773249
ETA:
https://twitter.com/Bev335/status/1584971860370132992
The Congressional Progressive Caucus enters a plea of incompetence.
The US Congressional Progressive Caucus withdrew a letter to the White House urging a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, chair Pramila Jayapal confirmed.
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said in a statement.
She added: “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1584976726333194241
… the reports were based on electronic intercepts of communications inside Russia, as well as open-source and even human intelligence.
“It’s hardly a secret that Putin enjoys palace intrigue and playing his underlings off against each other. It’s practically his personal doctrine to ensure no opposition to his rule can form,” said the NATO official who focuses on Russia military operations. “But what works in managing a hybrid mafia state like Russia doesn’t have the same positive effect on institutions like the Russian Army and Ministry of Defence officials in a war that’s hardly going well.”
Grab the beach chairs kids! /dkh
Well, if it is standard Russian military training, it won’t reflect any reality. If it’s real, then lord help the Russian troops. Still, they’ll be easy to pick off when they are glowing.
From May:
“explore prospects for a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine”
Honestly, that’s almost more contemptible than the ‘we think Ukraine should get chop-shopped for peace’/‘my gas prices’ school of diplomatic proposals. At least those are clear-eyed and honest about the fact that they are, fundamentally, proposals to sacrifice someone to an objective deemed more important than they are.
This nonsense implies the existence of a blatantly contrafactual mutually acceptable peace that all the parties who stand ready to accept haven’t accepted for, um, reasons; then piously notes that they agree with this noble and nonexistent solution, unlike the warmongers who are clearly in it for the civilian casualties and commodity prices; not because, say, of the presence of existential disagreements.
Treating genuine hostility as some kind of misunderstanding is out of its depth in elementary school anti-bullying initiatives; it’s a joke in egregious taste during an unprovoked shooting war.
Very short thread:
Kadyrov is on-message. IIRC he might have started it.
Prigozhyn claims that Wagner has a “Czech battalion named after Schweik”.
How fast can a Mercedes accelerate from a standing start?
