jonnyroyale.bsky.social
@jonnyroyale.bsky.social
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Putin is installing spy software on every new device sold in Russia. This is a huge step toward the Kremlin’s technofascist ambitions of control and coercion.
Putin launches spy app to keep Russians in ‘digital gulag’
WhatsApp is to be banned and replaced with Max, which incorporates permanent snooping tech and will be installed on all digital devices sold in Russia
www.thetimes.com
July 22, 2025 at 4:48 AM
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Been reading what Finland’s most experienced Russia hands - diplomats, soldiers, scholars - have been writing about Russia lately. One repeated and important insight that struck me is this:

#Russia remains an #empire.

It never became a nation-state.

And empires are prone to #imperialism.
June 24, 2025 at 7:41 AM
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Amazing.
June 16, 2025 at 9:12 PM
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Karen Bass: "There is no comparison [with the 1992 riots]. And unfortunately that is what is being pushed, as though the city is in chaos, there's civil unrest everywhere. For most Angelenos, they're like, 'What city are they describing?' They are definitely not describing Los Angeles."
June 15, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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Schiff: "In the first administration, there were at least a few people in the cabinet of some independence who could say, 'No, Mr. President, that's a lawless idea, that's a stupid idea.' But there's no one in this current admin to tell POTUS 'that's a stupid idea'... there's nothing but sycophants"
June 15, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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Just released this free post. Its clear after statements by Rubio and Hegseth over the last few days that Putin has won. The US government is now operating under his almost total reflexive control. Trump has made the Russian narrative the US mindset. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...
Putin Has Won: The US Government Now Speaks His Narrative
And Trump Does Not Even Have To Give The Orders
open.substack.com
June 13, 2025 at 10:42 AM
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"Trump official who shut down counter-Russia agency has links to Kremlin"

No way! It cant be! 😒
June 4, 2025 at 1:09 PM
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Igor Girkin continues to harshly criticize the authorities and Putin for failing to prepare Russia for war, military modernization collapse, and trusting agreements with the West. He predicts escalating conflict, large-scale battles in Crimea and Donbas, and insists there will be no compromise.
May 13, 2025 at 10:04 AM
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Poland has proven the involvement of Russian intelligence services in the sabotage by arson of the “Marywilska 44” shopping center in Warsaw. Therefore, the Russian Consulate General in Kraków is being closed.
May 12, 2025 at 8:20 AM
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“It’s time to change the myth and the religion.”

- Carl Sagan
May 11, 2025 at 12:13 PM
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OTD in 1997 negotiations to end the 1st Chechen war began. as a result we promised to not use force, or the threat of force, “forever”.

2 years later we staged some false flags & invaded & killed over 100,000 civilians. So you can trust us in negotiations now.
May 12, 2025 at 5:48 AM
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Another day of reminding everyone of Carl Sagan’s eerily accurate warning about the dangers of not being able to ask skeptical scientific questions to those in power or authority.
May 8, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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What a surprise that the “full and comprehensive” free trade agreement Trump is announcing with much fanfare this morning is not exactly full and comprehensive.
May 8, 2025 at 11:33 AM
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A Russian influence operation was going nowhere. Then it hit the big time www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
May 7, 2025 at 9:42 PM
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Peter Krékó, quoted here, has been doing great work.
Since 2011 or so, Hungary has been what is known as a “hybrid regime”—not a totalitarian dictatorship, but not a real democracy, either. Is the same thing happening in the U.S.?
nyer.cm/YxWG7w0
May 8, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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Russia keeps killing civilians, and our official policy, sadly, is to blame the Ukrainian victims. The US could act to stop this, but we seem to lack both empathy and strategy. Good reporting here.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/w...
A Russian Missile Blew Apart These Kyiv Apartments, and a Decades-Old Community
www.nytimes.com
May 8, 2025 at 2:34 AM
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‼️ The OFZ Federal Bond Thread 2025:

Russia’s Race to Secure a Loan

Q2 Auction Day 5 of 13

Total revenue from Auction Days is

👉 1,373.72 Billion Rubles

And their Coupon Payments and Repayments have been

👉 1,445.08 Billion Rubles

They’re about 71.2 Billion rubles in the hole.
May 7, 2025 at 7:46 PM
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“the moment when the regime begins to really earn money is also often the moment when they really feel the need to crack down on civil liberties."
- @anneapplebaum.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...
The Most Corrupt Presidency in American History
Anne Applebaum on America’s backsliding democracy
www.theatlantic.com
May 7, 2025 at 7:23 PM
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Trump’s crypto scam: 764,000 ripped off, 58 wallets made millions. His awkward meeting with the Canadian PM, new wars, his family's latest global grift. There's a whole lot to catch up on in today's bulletin:
Today in Politics, Bulletin 125. 5/6/25
… 764,000 people lost money on Trump’s crypto scam according to data provided by analytics firm Chainalysis to CNBC: “Most of the wallets that lost money held smaller amounts of the token, according t...
www.meidasplus.com
May 6, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Trump’s back in the White House—and his kids are cashing in. Saudi towers, Qatari golf deals, crypto schemes. This isn’t public service. It’s a shakedown.

adamkinzinger.substack.com/p/the-trump-...
The Trump Crime Family Business: Selling America from the Inside
While Trump sits in the Oval Office, his sons are cutting foreign deals—from Saudi towers to Qatari golf resorts.
adamkinzinger.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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Footage released by Ukraine's GUR confirms a Ukrainian naval drone shot down a Russian Su-30 fighter jet using a modified R-73 air-to-air missile. This is the first destruction of a combat aircraft by a naval drone in the world.
May 3, 2025 at 9:56 AM
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May 2, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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Christopher Hitchens on Christianity.
May 2, 2025 at 12:19 PM
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He lost Dave again.
April 30, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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To them the truth is “hostile and political”
April 29, 2025 at 1:16 PM