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NatSecMedia delivers independent, on-the-ground reporting from Ukraine, with a focus on the Russian war against the Ukrainian people and the wider security challenges facing the region.

TOPICS: THE REPORTING BY THEME

Chris Sampson’s investigations and analysis from Kyiv, organized by theme. Many of these are multi-part series built over months, from the Witkoff Ventures and the Pattern of Betrayal to the deep-strike campaign and how Ukraine aid actually works. Pick a topic to start.

14 articles

The Intelligence War

HUR, the SBU, InformNapalm, partisans and the covert fight inside Russia and the occupied territories.

The Puppet and the Pipeline: How Ukraine’s Most Dangerous MP Ran a Russian Information War from Inside a Prison CellThe anatomy of an active measures operation embedded within a democratic legislature — and what it reveals about how modern hybrid warfare rMay 16, 2026The Enemy of My Enemy: How Ukraine Turned Moscow’s Chechens Against Each OtherA two-month intelligence operation ended with Kadyrov’s forces suffering their worst losses since the full-scale invasion began. The unit thMay 1, 2026GRU Military Unit 26165: The Architecture of AggressionA Comprehensive Intelligence Investigation into Russia’s Most Consequential Cyber Weapon — From the Cold War to Operation MasqueradeApril 22, 2026Eyes on the Kill ChainUkraine’s Atesh Partisan Network Has Mapped Russia’s Shahed Terror Infrastructure — From Factory Floor to Launch PadApril 11, 2026Walking the Path of FireTwelve Years of InformNapalm's War Against the KremlinMarch 31, 2026The Owls Are Not What They SeemFour years inside Ukraine’s most dangerous intelligence agencyFebruary 19, 2026
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The Invisible Front: Ukraine’s Partisan War in Occupied TerritoryHow Atesh, Zla Mavka, and Others, Continue a Resistance Tradition That Won’t Stop for CeasefiresFebruary 14, 2026The Starlink Trap: How Ukraine Turned Russia’s Satellite Lifeline Into a Counterintelligence HarvestWhen Starlink blocked Russian military access, Moscow hunted for Ukrainian civilians to exploit. Ukraine’s 256 Cyber Assault Division turnedFebruary 13, 2026Stacking Dead Russian GeneralsAn Accountability Campaign Conducted on the BattlefieldFebruary 8, 2026How Russia Weaponizes INTERPOL Against People Who Fought for Ukraine (and Why It Works)An Investigative Analysis of International Law Enforcement Tools as Instruments of Political PersecutionFebruary 2, 2026THE HARVEST: RUSSIA'S DIASPORA INFLUENCE CAMPAIGNSA leaked blueprint from Moscow confirms the playbook hasn’t changed — only the tools.February 1, 2026THE FIRE THAT FAILED: THE ODESA TRADE HOUSE FIRE - PT 2How Russia’s Hybrid Warfare Playbook Collapsed in OdesaJanuary 5, 2026The Fire That Failed-Part I: The Glazyev Tapes and the Blueprint to steal OdesaHow Russia designed, financed, and coordinated the operation to capture Odesa—in their own wordsDecember 20, 2025THE ORTHODOX WEAPON: HOW RUSSIA TURNED RELIGION INTO AN INSTRUMENT OF WARA Reminder of the InformNapalm leaks that show us Russia's cynical use of religionDecember 14, 2025
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5 articles

Deep Strikes: Ukraine’s War on Russian Oil

How Ukraine turned Russia’s refineries, depots and oil revenue into a battlefield.

Moscow’s Inferno: The Fire That Came Home To RoostRussia’s four and a half years of launching missiles and drones are being mirrored back to its home base.September 23, 2026Donald Trump’s Iran Failure Becomes Another Reason to Blame UkraineHow Ukraine’s Battle to Cripple Russia’s War Machine Fits Into the Trump Administration’s DistractionSeptember 16, 2026MAKE MOSCOW BURNHOW UKRAINE TURNED RUSSIA'S OIL ECONOMY INTO A BATTLEFIELDJune 24, 2026BURNING THE LIFELINE: How Ukraine Systematically Dismantled Russia’s War Machine, One Refinery at a TimeA comprehensive investigation into four years of Ukrainian deep strikes, the political lie that tried to stop them, and what it means when yFebruary 9, 2026Trump Just Sanctioned Russia’s Biggest Oil Companies. Don’t Pop the Champagne Yet.Don't blink, you'll forget what happened for 11 yearsOctober 23, 2025
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8 articles

Russia’s Air War on Ukrainian Cities

Four years of missiles, Shaheds and glide bombs, documented from Kyiv.

July 2nd, A Night of Fire Over KyivWhat Russia’s July 1–2 mass strike on Ukraine tells us about the physics of terror, the arithmetic of air defense, and the war behind the waJuly 2, 2026“Retaliation” Is the Kremlin’s Favorite Word for Murder.How a single word became Russia’s most effective weapon — and why every journalist, editor, and citizen who uses it is doing Moscow’s work fMay 26, 2026478 Missiles in Three Days. Russia Called an Emergency Security Council Meeting About UkraineThe numbers are not in dispute. The dead are not in dispute. Only Russia’s seat at the table is.May 24, 2026The Night They Sent EverythingRussia unleashed its most complex aerial assault of the war on Kyiv overnight — Oreshnik, Kinzhals, Zircons, six hundred dronesMay 24, 2026Blood on Their Hands: Iran’s Role in the Killing of UkrainiansIranian President just projected his country's key issues in a single tweet.March 14, 2026The Storm Above Kyiv: Four Years of Russian Air War Data — And What It Tells Us About Trump's "Peace Prize" DelusionWhat You Learn When You Don't Go to the ShelterFebruary 17, 2026
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Russia Launches 447 Projectiles Against Ukraine’s Energy Grid and Nuclear InfrastructureDirect strikes at Nuclear facilities should alarm EuropeFebruary 7, 2026The Engineered Winter: How Russia’s Energy Blitzkrieg Is Remaking Ukraine’s CitiesA forensic analysis of the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and what it reveals about occupation strategyJanuary 30, 2026
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9 articles

POWs, Stolen Children and War Crimes

Prisoners of war, deported children, Crimean Tatars and the evidence of Russian crimes.

STOLEN FOR PROFIT: HOW DISINFORMATION FUELS WAR CRIMESWhy is Substack enabling the financing of disinformation on Ukrainian children?September 3, 2026MADE IN RUSSIA, DELIVERED INTO CAPTIVITYRussia’s Industrialized Torture of Ukrainian Prisoners of War: A Documentary TestimonyMay 24, 2026Russia’s deliberate isolation and prosecution of Azov POWs700 Azov defenders. Four years in Russian captivity. A mother, a veteran, and a state official sat at a press table in Kyiv - What is happenMay 20, 2026The Crimean Tatar Genocide: A People Written Out of Their Own LandMay 18 — Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar PeopleMay 18, 2026The IOC's Moral Failure: Banning Memory While Tolerating MurderHow the Olympic Committee Made Remembering the Dead as Controversial Than Killing ThemFebruary 13, 2026The Forgotten Thousands: How Russia Is Winning the War Against Ukraine’s ChildrenThe first children Russia took were small enough to carry. That was February 2022. They are teenagers now.February 5, 2026
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Порожні стільці на Софійській площіУкраїна відзначає День ув'язненого письменника мовчазним свідченням про тих, кого заглушила РосіяNovember 17, 2025The Empty Chairs of Sophia SquareUkraine marks Day of the Imprisoned Writer with silent testimony to those silenced by RussiaNovember 16, 2025A day in Bucha: First hand account of atrocities in UkraineEyewitness accounts of the devastation to a quiet communityApril 28, 2022
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12 articles

How the Funding Works: Aid, Sanctions and Accountability

Where the money goes, who pays, and what the corruption data actually shows.

The Reformer They RemovedMykhailo Fedorov, the generals, and the fight over what kind of country Ukraine becomesJuly 17, 2026What’s Actually In The Box: Inside the Kiel Institute’s Ledger of the West’s War EffortA look at how you can learn what comes to defend UkraineJune 30, 2026THE BUSINESS OF DESTRUCTIONHow Vladimir Putin Turned the War Against Ukraine Into the Most Sophisticated Profiteering System of the Modern EraMay 17, 2026This Isn’t Ukraine’s Scandal. It’s Ukraine’s Progress.The press keeps getting the Yermak story exactly backwards.May 13, 2026Russia Is Already PayingThe G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration initiative doesn’t sound like a war-winning mechanism. It is one.April 21, 2026UKRAINE'S SANCTIONS WORK BETTER THAN AMERICA'SHow drones accomplished what four years of financial architecture could not — and what Washington did when it noticedMarch 27, 2026
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The $750 Million Betrayal: How Trump Broke America's Arsenal, Stole Europe's Money for Ukraine, and Handed Putin a WindfallTrump burned through the weapons he said he was saving, then sent in the paratroopers.March 26, 2026Why Putin Could Not Turn This Machine OffThe Ten Pillars of Russia’s Sacrificed EconomyMarch 24, 2026Who’s Actually Corrupt? The Numbers Ukraine’s Critics Don’t Want You to SeeTransparency International’s data shows the even during war, Ukraine was serious about tackling corruption, while the critics failed their oFebruary 11, 2026The $58 Billion They Don't Want You to Know About: How MAGA Republicans Voted Against Your PaycheckUkraine aid isn't foreign charity—it's the biggest domestic manufacturing investment in a generation. And your representative probably votedJanuary 22, 2026The $174 Billion Lie: How Ukraine Aid Actually WorksWhat Washington actually spent, where the money really went, and why the loudest critics are lying about itJanuary 10, 2026Phase Two of Funding Ukraine EngagedHow NATO’s PURL Initiative Is Changing the Game — and Why It Needs to Move Even FasterOctober 8, 2025
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6 articles

Witkoff, Kushner and the Moscow Channel

The Witkoff Ventures series: business deals, back channels and the legal case against his mandate.

The Diplomatic Circuit: Moscow to Kyiv and Peace Through StrengthVolume Three of the Witkoff Ventures: a coin, a lie told to his face, a train into Kyiv, and the ledger nobody in either room was carryingSeptember 7, 2026Eight Trips to Moscow: They’ve Never Come to KyivSteve Witkoff and Jared Kushner get called out by the man with CardsApril 21, 2026The Kushner Intelligence: How a Whistleblower Complaint Against Tulsi Gabbard Took Eight Months to Reach CongressWe know how Tulsi works—for Trump, not for Americans. Cult lieutenants are her norm.February 13, 2026Peace Through Profit: How Steve Witkoff’s Business Partnerships Shape Trump’s Ukraine StrategyHow a $500 million crypto deal, frozen Russian assets, and a billionaire network converged to turn diplomacy into an investment strategyFebruary 2, 2026A Man Without a Mandate: The Legal Case That Steve Witkoff Cannot Lawfully Represent the United States—Or UkraineThe Shadow Diplomacy the Founders Warned about and Sought to PreventDecember 3, 2025A Crime In Plain Sight: State Capture of Ukraine by Trump and PutinHow intercepted calls reveal a $293 billion war profiteering conspiracy orchestrated by a real estate developer, Russian intelligence, and ANovember 30, 2025
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18 articles

Trump and the Betrayal of Ukraine

The Pattern of Betrayal series and the administration’s pressure on Kyiv.

Zelenskyy, The Man With Cards, Allows The Kremlin Its Stupid ParadeWho Is Calling The Shots Now?May 8, 2026The Reckoning of JD VanceThe Man who sabotaged both Ukraine and America - And He's Proud of ItApril 15, 2026The Shapeshifter’s Grand TourJD Vance Is the Political Typhoid Mary. Everywhere He Goes, Things Die.April 13, 2026The Democracy Lectures of a Trump Voter: Meaghan Mobbs and the Audacity of NepotismMeaghan Mobbs has spent months telling Ukrainians their democracy is deficient. She voted for the man who attacked her own.March 19, 2026The Man With No Cards Said Zelensky Has No CardsHow the President Who Knows More Than the Generals Got Americans Killed by a Weapon He Was Warned About, Offered a Solution To, and Chose toMarch 15, 2026The Appeasement Dividend: Trump's Complicit Hand in Murder of UkrainiansHow Washington handed Vladimir Putin the one thing four years of European sacrifice, Western sanctions, and Ukrainian courage couldn't buy hMarch 13, 2026
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The Lesson Ukraine Tried to Teach the World, America Chose Not to ListenAnd Now They Will Pay the TuitionMarch 5, 2026How Donald Screwed the Security of America and Ukraine to Get Back in Office — Only to Insult Zelensky, Blame Biden, and Put Americans and Allies in DangerBoard of Peace, My Ass.March 3, 2026America Talking Out Both Sides of Its Mouth: The Marco Rubio Parade in MunichSecretary of State promises alliance. President threatens seizure. Ukraine gets the bill.February 16, 2026The Silence That Shapes the War: What Republican strategist Steven Moore Won’t Name About Trump’s Betrayal of UkraineAn Investigative RebuttalJanuary 27, 2026Trump’s Davos Lies: A Complete BreakdownA Mental Meltdown of Claims, Threats, and Power Politics on the World StageJanuary 21, 2026The Clueless General: How Keith Kellogg’s Fake Lincoln Comparison Masks American Cowardice and AbuseThe American Habit of Condescension, the Trump Fog Machine and the Politics It ServesJanuary 12, 2026How Many Ways Have I Thanked You? Never Enough ApparentlyA comprehensive accounting of Ukrainian gratitude to the United States — and why the record matters when political narratives claim otherwisNovember 23, 2025The Structure of the Trump-Putin 28-point Capitulation Plan is Internally IncoherentOr how my speech teacher condemned me to logical fallacy thinking foreverNovember 22, 2025Trump's Pattern of Betrayal Part Four: The Hacking of Donald TrumpHow the Kremlin Groomed an American President—And Why Ukraine Pays the PriceOctober 23, 2025Trump, Putin, and the Systematic Betrayal of Ukraine-Part Three: From Election to HumiliationThe Pre-Inauguration Warning Signs: November 2024 – January 2025October 19, 2025The Shadow Presidency: Trump’s Interregnum of Influence and the Sabotage of UkrainePart Two of “The Trump Betrayal: A Chronicle of Ukraine’s Abandonment”October 19, 2025Trump’s Pattern of Betrayal Pt 1: Why Ukraine Must Prepare for the WorstYears of Trump's pathology are on display for easy reminder of what comes nextOctober 19, 2025
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13 articles

Russia’s Demands, Diplomacy and the Law

Russia’s maximalist demands, Crimea, NATO myths and what the law already says.

Crimea Is the War: A Day Inside the Fifth International Forum of the Crimea Platform Expert NetworkFour Panels Explore the Start and End of Russia's War Against UkraineJuly 1, 2026The Zelenskyy Deals Russia Couldn’t StopHow Ukraine turned four years of prisoner diplomacy, Iranian drones, and a war Moscow started into a Gulf defense empire — while the KremlinApril 7, 2026The Law They Cannot Give Away: How Congress Has Already Constrained Any U.S. Recognition of Russia’s Stolen Ukrainian LandsCongress Already Said No. The Question Is Whether Anyone Enforces It.March 26, 2026The Lie That Won’t Die: A Definitive Demolition of the “NATO Provoked Russia” ArgumentAnti-Imperialism That Only Runs One Direction Is Just Imperialism with Better BrandingMarch 11, 2026Crimea Is Not Negotiable: Leniie Umerova Speaks for Those Still in Russia's PrisonsFrom Stalin's cattle cars to Putin's Lefortovo — one Crimean Tatar's journey through Russia's oldest warMarch 10, 2026What Russia Threw AwayFour Years of a War Nobody Was Supposed to NoticeFebruary 28, 2026
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THE EMPIRE THAT NEVER ENDED: A conversation with Alexander KharaRussia has not changed course. It has not responded to deterrence. It has not moderated. It is still doing what empires do.February 10, 2026Who Is Alexander Khara?“We fight to hold onto our sovereignty and to diminish Russia’s ability to threaten the rest of Europe.” — Alexander Khara, June 2025February 10, 2026THE COMPREHENSIVE DESTRUCTIVE BREAKDOWN OF RUSSIA’S MAXIMALIST DEMANDS — Part IIIPart III — Cultural Engineering, Economic Capture, and Legal Erasure: How the Final Demands Complete the Dismantling of Ukrainian SovereigntNovember 24, 2025THE COMPREHENSIVE DESTRUCTIVE BREAKDOWN OF RUSSIA’S MAXIMALIST DEMANDSPart II — Ukraine’s Forced Neutralization: The Political and Military Dismantling of a Sovereign NationNovember 23, 2025THE BREAKDOWN OF RUSSIA’S IMPERIALIST & MAXIMALIST DEMANDSPart I — Territorial Concessions, Demilitarization & New BordersNovember 22, 2025The Dagger They Never Saw: How Ukraine Is Winning the War They Said It Would LoseOr: Three Years of Laughing at “Kyiv Will Fall in Three Days”November 4, 2025The Myths of Jeffrey Sachs — and the 49 Days That Never WereA forensic investigation into how a Columbia economist built a false narrative about Ukraine—and why the receipts prove otherwiseNovember 3, 2025
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9 articles

Russia’s Friends in Europe

Orbán, Szijjártó, Fico, Radev and the network that carries Moscow’s agenda.

Goodbye, Russia. Goodbye, Lenin.Europe isn’t waiting for a ceasefire to dismantle three decades of Kremlin leverage. It’s already done most of it.May 7, 2026The Dossier: Rumen RadevThe Kremlin just got another seat at Europe's table. This one came with a ten-year security agreement Ukraine signed twenty days too early.April 20, 2026Yanukovych Wasn’t Just Putin’s Puppet. He Was Something WorseWhat Yanukovych was, precisely, is the framework we're missing for understanding what Donald Trump is — and the puppet framing gets both of April 10, 2026Lost in BudapestThe Vice President of the United States just campaigned for the Kremlin's best asset in Europe.April 9, 2026Why Do They Love Hungary So Much?How a foreign government bought the American right a fantasy and called it civilizationApril 8, 2026The Blood on the Banner: How CPAC Became Moscow’s Most Useful Western ConferenceThree Georgian Dream prime ministers. A party with a United Russia treaty. A Kremlin asset at the podium. Five years. The same guest list. TMarch 25, 2026
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The Three-Way: How Trump, Orbán, and Putin Built the West’s Most Dangerous Intelligence PartnershipThe SVR called it “the Gamechanger.” Trump called him “a winner.” Neither was wrong about what was at stakeMarch 22, 2026On Behalf of Russia You Mean, Mr. FicoWhat kind of man, in year four of a full-scale war against his neighbors, chooses this? We will tell you exactly what kind.March 20, 2026The Diplomat Who Serves Two Masters: How Péter Szijjártó Became Putin’s Most Useful Man in EuropeThe Evidence Against Péter SzijjártóMarch 11, 2026
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21 articles

Kremlin Narratives and Their Western Amplifiers

The good Russian myth, the pseudoexperts and the voices that launder Kremlin talking points.

The Gabbard Farewell TourHow America’s Top Spy Used the DNI Podium to Recycle Russian Propaganda One Last TimeJune 13, 2026The Compass Was Always Pointed ThereWhy Tulsi Gabbard Was Never Really Left-WingJune 13, 2026The Disinformation Relay: Jake Shields, Ben Swann, and Ten Minutes of Kremlin Talking PointsA Groyper Hasbeen and a disgraced conspiracy freak spend their time lying about Ukraine and Russia on YouTubeJune 11, 2026The Compendium and the DisappearedHow a Peace Activist’s Dishonest Ukraine Dossier Launders Imperial Logic Through Anti-Imperialist Language — And Erases the People It ClaimsMay 19, 2026The Dissembler and the AmplifierHow Tucker Carlson and Zelensky’s Estranged Ex-Spokeswoman Built a Propaganda Event Out of Grievance, Hearsay, and a Media Empire Built for May 12, 2026The Word That Gets Soldiers Killed: How the Christian Science Monitor Handed Russia a Citation It Didn’t DeserveThe CSMonitor called AFU soldiers mercenaries. Under IHL, that label gets people executed.May 6, 2026
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She Knew Was Being Played — And Played Herself AnywayA comprehensive investigation into Laura Loomer’s political identity, constructed loyalty, and the lawsuit that turned performance into legaApril 26, 2026She Sued Bill Maher for Making a Joke. Then the Court Read Her Own Tweets Back to Her.Loomer v. Maher is the greatest self-own in the history of American defamation law — and the judge didn’t even have to raise his voice.April 23, 2026Trump Cult Minion Gabbard Is Lying, AgainThe DNI released the documents that were supposed to prove a conspiracy. They prove the opposite.April 16, 2026“We Are Brothers”: How Russia Uses Kinship as a WeaponThe word “brotherly” is not an expression of love. It is a claim of ownership.April 12, 2026How to Make Up Shit About Russia's terrorism against UkraineA Systematic Debunking of the Kremlin Narratives Pete Blaber and Shawn Ryan Are Selling to America's VeteransApril 10, 2026You May Not Like To Hear This Mehdi, but Ukraine is not IranMehdi Hasan tried to make Zelensky into a hypocrite. Then came the receipts.April 9, 2026The Russian 'Podcast' That Pays for the WarHow Russians turned a Western podcast audience into a Russian military fundraising operation.April 7, 2026THE TOUR GUIDEHow Russia Walked Sanctioned Officials Through the United States Capitol — and Why Anna Paulina Luna Was the Perfect HostApril 3, 2026The Russian Soul Survives Everything Except AccountabilityA Poem in Several Acts of Willful BlindnessMarch 17, 2026The Good Russian Is Not Coming To Save YouAnd when you tell them that, they will make you pay for it.March 17, 2026The Senator, the Pedophile, and the KremlinOn March 5, 2026, Sheldon Whitehouse stood on the Senate floor and said out loud what intelligence professionals have whispered for years: tMarch 6, 2026The Watcher: Juliet Jeske and the Thankless Work of Watching Fox News So You Don't Have ToNobody volunteers for this job. But somebody has to do it.March 4, 2026The DNI Whistleblower Case against Tulsi Gabbard: Eight Months to CongressThe Inspector General memo reveals a system designed for oversight that broke under political pressure.February 4, 2026Stuck on Euphemismsor How We Lie by Word ChoiceNovember 8, 2025Spot the Pseudoexpert: Liars and the Lies They TellA framework for identifying—and demolishing—credentialed voices spreading disinformation about UkraineNovember 4, 2025
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6 articles

Technology on the Battlefield

Starlink, Ubiquiti, AI targeting and the hardware of modern war.

The Hard Drive Reality: How Our Worst Timing Just Showed the Sabotage In MotionThree companies control every hard drive on earth. AI just bought all of them. Here's what that costs a war-zone journalist trying to keep tJuly 4, 2026The Algorithmic BargainUkraine is building the world’s most advanced AI war machine. The question that needs asking is who owns it.May 21, 2026When the Exit Is the Enemy: How X’s Link Suppression Betrays Its Own Free Speech MissionA legal and public-interest analysis of anti-competitive conduct on the platform formerly known as TwitterFebruary 5, 2026The Starlink Problem: When American Technology Becomes Russian ArtilleryHow Elon Musk’s satellites are guiding kamikaze drones into Ukrainian civilian targets—and why declarations in Dubai tell the storyJanuary 30, 2026When Your Router Goes to War: The Ubiquiti Scandal and What It Means for Tech AccountabilityA major American tech company’s equipment is all over the Russian front lines in Ukraine. The evidence is damning. The silence is deafening.January 27, 2026The Superhuman Defenders: How a Ukrainian Startup Is Building AI-Powered Prosthetics in a War ZoneWhile manufacturing advanced bionic hands in Kyiv during air raids, Esper Bionics is proving Ukraine’s innovation economy isn’t just surviviJanuary 14, 2026
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7 articles

Ukrainian History, Culture and Identity

The Heavenly Hundred, Vasyl Stus, Easter traditions and the history Russia tries to erase.

The History of Polish Oppression of UkrainiansAnd The Formulas Nobody Wants To Use to Get To Solutions and UnderstandingJune 12, 2026The Thread That RemainsOn Vyshyvanka Day, Ukraine wears its inheritance. Russia keeps trying to bury it.May 21, 2026EASTER 2026: SACRED TRADITIONS-THE FULL STORYIn 5th year of the full-scale war, Ukrainians gathered at St Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv to celebrate the Resurrection. The people are vibrant April 14, 2026О Земле Втрачена: The Life, Works, and Undying Voice of Vasyl StusAnd how my friend Marjan Pyrig breathes life back to the words.March 22, 2026The Heavenly HundredThe Sacrifice of LibertyFebruary 20, 2026The Quiet Patriot: A Story of Ordinary Heroism in Extraordinary TimesA Reluctant Leader Who Never Needed ApplauseSeptember 23, 2025
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Entering the crisis in UkraineHow I wandered into a war and fell in love with a countryMarch 31, 2022
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19 articles

Trump’s Wars: Iran, Venezuela and the Pentagon

Iran, Hegseth’s Pentagon and an America First foreign policy in practice.

Trump Said He Would Break Iran. Iran Broke Him.Four months, four ceasefires, one Strait Iran still controls. The receipts, in order.June 22, 2026They Are Losing The War They Said They WonAmerica launched a war against a country it could not defeat, claimed a victory that does not exist, and the president’s intelligence communMay 7, 2026Two Men, Two Wars, One BookThe April 14 Update: Where Trump’s Iran War and Putin’s Ukraine War Stand TodayApril 14, 2026Hegseth Has a Problem with the Truth, because he's a drunk liarHe stood at the Pentagon podium this morning and lied. Here is the evidence.April 8, 2026THE MAN WHO COULDN'T END A WAR HE STARTEDTrump threatened to wipe out a civilization, folded to Pakistan 88 minutes before his own deadline, declared victory, and tried to have CNN April 8, 2026THE MADNESS BRIEFINGThe President of the United States just held a wartime press conference. It was the most dangerous thing he's done yet — and nobody in the rApril 7, 2026
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TACO TODDLER IN CHIEFThe Mad King threatens war crimes from his Truth Social throne on Easter SundayApril 5, 2026No Quarter, No Mercy, No CompetencePete Hegseth’s contempt for the laws of war isn’t just rhetoric. It’s a command signal — and troops will pay the price.April 3, 2026The Coward and the Thief: How Donald Trump Blew Up a Working Nuclear Deal, Started a War to Get It Back, and Then Abandoned the World at the StraitHe tore up the JCPOA. He sent American bombers. He closed the world’s most critical oil chokepoint. Then he told everyone else to deal with April 2, 2026Hegseth and Trump Lie AgainThe ammunition crisis they’re blaming on Biden was manufactured by Republicans — and the evidence is in the congressional recordMarch 19, 2026The Worst of Militarists: Captain Pete HegsethSun Tzu’s Art of War vs. TV jock Pete Hegseth’s War on IranMarch 14, 2026They Built the Cage. Then The US Voted Against Unlocking It. The United States co-authored the Taliban’s return to power. Now it has voted alongside one other country — Israel — against a UN resolutionMarch 14, 2026Bombs, Drones, and Malware: The War With Iran Isn’t Just Happening in the SkyA hidden conflict now unfolding through networks, infrastructure, and digital sabotageMarch 10, 2026What I Learned from Sun Tzu, and What You Must Too: Lessons Trump and Putin Will Never LearnThe oldest military text ever written predicted both of their failures. In detail. 2,500 years agoMarch 9, 2026They Told You Iraq Had Weapons. They Were Wrong. Now Look at What Iran Actually Has.Twenty-three years after the most consequential intelligence failure in modern American history, the United States is once again at war in tMarch 2, 2026The Anti-War Illusion: How “Forever War” Rhetoric Collapsed in Real TimeWhen “America First” met the machinery of intervention.March 1, 2026Trump’s China Contradiction: The Data Doesn’t LieHow Trump talks about enemies and adversaries is undermine by his actions that benefit them.February 13, 2026How America Talks Itself Out of Europe: The Rhetoric That Threatens U.S. PowerAlliances, consent, and the fragile architecture behind American global powerJanuary 11, 2026“Like Watching a Television Show”: When the President Describes War as Entertainment An Investigation into the Legal Fiction Behind the Venezuela Raid—and What It Means for U.S.-Russia ConfrontationJanuary 4, 2026
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40 articles

American Democracy, the Courts and the Press

January 6, the courts, the FBI and the fight over a free press.

Judge Boasberg Blows Up Rubio's Censorship-Visa RegimeA leaked cable and Rubio's own memos did the damage. A federal judge just made him own it.July 15, 2026THE SOVEREIGNTY HE SOLDMarco Rubio wants you to fear a court he once begged to prosecute Vladimir Putin. July 15, 2026A Total Todd: What a Federal Judge Put on the Record 48 Hours Before His Confirmation HearingFederal judge put on the public record exactly what 1,200 of his own former colleagues have been trying to tell the SenateJuly 13, 2026Hey Clarence, Frederick Douglass Did Not Die for ThisClarence Thomas borrowed the language of Black liberation to bury birthright citizenship — and lostJuly 1, 2026The Government Sent Four Cop Cars at 5 A.M. to Fight a Flag. They LostA Federal Judge Just Spent 52 Pages Explaining What a Dictionary Already KnewJune 30, 2026The Cage and the ConstitutionA federal lawsuit wants to stop UFC Freedom 250. It has a case.June 11, 2026
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What Hannah Arendt Tells Us About Donald TrumpRevisiting the most important book on totalitarianism in the age of Trump 2.0May 9, 2026The Crossfire Machine: How CNN Turned News Into Tribal Theater — And Why America Is Paying for ItHow the Panel Dispute Format Replaced Journalism With Tribal Theater — and Made Americans Dumber About the WorldMay 5, 2026Trump Fears the Comedians More Than the Mob BossA comedian makes a widow joke. A war criminal gets a phone call. Only one of them has anything to worry about.April 29, 2026Shorthand for the Donald Trump Bullshit MachineA field guide for journalists, editors, and anyone who has ever had to fact-check a man whose relationship with reality is purely transactioApril 28, 2026What Trump Said to 60 Minutes — and What He Was Actually DoingTrump’s interview about it was 40 minutes of operational disinformationApril 28, 2026THE BOOK OF DONALDBeing the Complete and Unabridged Chronicle of the One Called the Builder, the Brander, and the Twice-Anointed; His Rise, His Reign, and theApril 26, 2026The Room That “Totally Unified”How the Press Handed Trump the Night He Almost Didn't Have.April 26, 2026Bring on the Discovery!How Kash Patel Just Outran His Outrage MachineApril 25, 2026The Government Just Indicted the People Who Were Watching the NazisAmerica’s Most Effective Civil Rights Organization Now Faces Federal Destruction for Doing Exactly What the FBI Does Every Day.April 22, 2026THE LAWFARE DIRECTOR: The FBI Director Is Suing JournalismHow Kash Patel Built a Seven-Year Litigation Machine to Silence Reporting, and What It's Designed to DoApril 21, 2026The Government Can’t Afford YouAn Indictment in Five CountsApril 19, 2026The Son and The Seditious FatherStewart Rhodes built a seditious militia and called it patriotism. His own son watched it happen from the inside.April 17, 2026The Deflecting Senator from NowhereRon Johnson attacked one of America’s finest constitutional scholars to protect a president who started a war he promised he’d never fightApril 16, 2026The Shocktroops and the Crime BossTrump's wants to make their crimes disappear. Here’s what they want to hide.April 15, 2026The Lie Machine Next to the AnchorCNN keeps hiring Trump’s mouthpieces and calling it balanceApril 14, 2026The Diseased TempleKash Patel called the FBI corrupt. Then he fired the people who could prove he was wrong. Now they’re fighting back. March 31, 2026The FBI Director Got Hacked. By the People He Just Bragged About Defeating.What a Federal Affidavit, a Tehran Crypto Exchange, a $250,000 Death Bounty, and Sixteen Years of Iranian Cyber War Tell Us About the ConfliMarch 28, 2026The Honest Man: Robert Mueller's Life, His Report, and the President Who Feared HimA memorial for the soldier and prosecutor who told the truth when the country needed it mostMarch 25, 2026Why Trump Could Not Turn This Machine Off EitherThe Ten Pillars of America’s Self-Inflicted Fiscal CatastropheMarch 25, 2026The Word Treason: How Trump Escalated From Regulatory Threat to Capital Charge Against the American PressHe spent a decade inciting attacks on reporters. He pardoned the men who carried them out. Now he's reached for the charge that carries deatMarch 16, 2026The Ministry of Truth Was Always the PlanHow Trump Built an Information Compliance State While Screaming About CensorshipMarch 15, 2026DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I SPENDHow the Trump Administration Looted the Public Treasury While Preaching AusterityMarch 14, 2026The Man in the DoorMetropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges held the line on January 6th. Then they pardoned the men who broke him. He’s still there.March 12, 2026The Lawyer the President Tried to Silence — and Why the Courts Stopped HimInside the legal battle between Mark Zaid and the Trump administration — and the constitutional guardrails that stopped a campaign of retaliMarch 6, 2026BLIND IN THE DARKNESS OF WARHow the Trump Administration Systematically Dismantled America’s Counterintelligence Architecture — Then Started a WarMarch 3, 2026The Last Stand: Why Independent Journalism Is Democracy’s Only HopeFrom autocratic playbooks to Wall Street extraction, the systematic dismantling of the Fourth Estate—and what comes nextFebruary 3, 2026When the Court Says You Never Existed or The Prosecutor Who Never WasHow Trump’s Hand-Picked Attorney Went After His Enemies—Until a Federal Judge Erased Her From ExistenceJanuary 22, 2026Alina Habba Just Confessed to Selective Prosecution on Live TelevisionSpeech, Power, and the Line theWhen Political Threats Collide With the First Amendment Law Won’t CrossJanuary 19, 2026Donald Trump Just Got Smacked Down by a Federal Judge in Minnesota. Let’s Explore What She Said.A federal judge just issued an 83-page order that methodically dismantles the constitutional violations happening during Trump’s immigrationJanuary 17, 2026The Mark Kelly Lawsuit Exposes Trump’s Fascist WeaknessWhen autocrats attack their own military heroes, they’re not showing strength—they’re revealing terrorJanuary 13, 2026"All Lives Splatter" Was Republican Doctrine. Renée Nicole Good Is Dead Because of It.The Right Wing Rhetoric That Made Vehicle Violence Seem Acceptable—and Why the Law Rejects ItJanuary 9, 2026JANUARY 6th, FIVE YEARS LATERThe Attack on the Capitol, The Men Who Defended It, And the Nation That Pardoned Its AttackersJanuary 6, 2026What Jack Smith’s Testimony Reveals About January 6thAn investigative analysis of the Special Counsel’s deposition and what the evidence shows about Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 electioJanuary 3, 2026Dick Cheney Has Died. Justice Is Undone.The NeoCon Centerpiece Is No MoreNovember 4, 2025
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9 articles

Faith, Power and Christian Nationalism

Christian nationalism, end-times politics and the abuse of scripture.

The Gift of TonguesPaula White, the prosperity gospel, and the divine protection racket now running out of the White HouseApril 25, 2026Hal Lindsey Was Right About One ThingA Look at how End Times Grifters Affected Our Geopolitical LandscapeApril 20, 2026God, Guns, and Armageddon: How End-Times Theology Captured the PentagonPete Hegseth’s preachers, the Christian nationalist network running American war policy, and the soldiers told to welcome ArmageddonMarch 28, 2026The Book of John: How Fugelsang Dismantles the Religious Right’s Abuse of VerseA prophetic voice emerges against the Christian nationalist plague spreading under America’s thrice-married, adjudicated rapist, 34-count feFebruary 12, 2026When a Louisiana Lawyer Tries to Out-Bible the Pope: Mike Johnson's Theological Cage MatchThe Speaker of the House just challenged Pope Leo XIV to a scriptural duel over immigration raids. It went exactly as badly as you'd expect.February 4, 2026Are You Working for the Islamic State? Are You Sure?Why nonstop bashing of Muslims is the single most effective recruiting tool extremists have—and why the numbers expose the lieJanuary 15, 2026
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The Dog That Didn't Bark: Why the Founders Never Said "Christians Only"Or: How America's Founders Had Every Chance to Make This a Christian Nation... and Chose Not ToOctober 31, 2025When AI Speaks in Tongues: Grok's Journey from Critical Analysis to Religious ConfessionEvery Serious Theology Begins With QuestionsOctober 30, 2025The Right Wing Delusion about Their CharlieHe profited off of hate in the millionsSeptember 17, 2025
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