“Het aantal inzetbare manschappen beslist mee het verloop van een uitputtingsoorlog zoals in Oekraïne. In heel Europa zijn troepenaantallen daarom nu een thema. Het besef drong door tijdens het recente plan om een vredesmacht te sturen die de frontlijn observeert, mocht er een wapenstilstand komen.
“Men begon te rekenen, in de wetenschap dat je door de noodzakelijke rotaties voor elke militair er eigenlijk drie nodig hebt. Alle Europese legers, ook de Franse en Britse, kwamen al snel tot de vaststelling dat ze niet goed wisten waar ze al die manschappen vandaan zouden halen.”

Interview met @TomSimoens137 over zijn uitstekend historisch boek ‘De Mythe van de Nieuwe Oorlog’.

Lees dit artikel op De Morgen demorgen.be/ts-b1f93885/

Applebaum: If Russia wins the war, European defense spending would have to triple or quadruple, because the threat would be much greater.

Europe must give Ukraine defenses and offensive weapons to hit enough Russian targets that Moscow concludes it cannot win. 1/

I'm cautiously optimistic about the news that Starlink/Starshield service has been restored for the Ukrainian army.
Several units have reported that connectivity at speeds above 160 km/h is back.

It will take more time to draw final conclusions, but one thing is clear: the public attention to the problem and the pressure within the US worked.

US senators from both parties are threatening to block confirmation of Trump's nominees for government posts until the White House ensures that Starlink is fully restored for Ukrainian troops, The New York Times reports.

Senator Richard Blumenthal has formally submitted an inquiry to Elon Musk.
This puts the issue on the official record, and it could grow into a full investigation after the midterm elections.

The Kremlin and the Trump administration are trying to force Ukraine into capitulation.
But we will withstand this too.

AfD bering paid by russians, what a surprise!

Instead of a thousand words. A six years old Vlad stands near his mother's grave. She was murdered by russians in Bucha. April 4, 2022.

UPDATE: Israel’s economy is growing so fast, it will leapfrog the Netherlands and Australia within the next 18 months, in time for it's 80th birthday—not by 2030, as predicted—to rank second only to the USA in GDP per capita of all nations with populations over 10 million.

Let me get this straight:

We got back ONE hostage in exchange for betraying our ally, Ukraine, lifting sanctions on Russia, buying their diesel, and helping RUSSIA who is helping Iran target our soldiers (21 dead in trump's war so far)?

That's not Art of the Deal.
That's Art of the Kneel.

A senior Ukrainian commander told me he lost more than $1 million in drones the first night StarShield went out. The next 3 days, speeds remained so unstable they canceled almost all ops striking RU logistics to protect Ukrainian infantry in the kill zone nytimes.com/2026/10/21/wor…

Russian forces suffered a record 2,250 casualties in 24 hours amid heavy infantry assaults in Donetsk, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Ukraine’s drone forces eliminated 680 troops in a single-day record, blunting attacks as Russian losses hit new highs.

kyivpost.com/post/87872

There were reports on efforts to deal with the aftermath of Russian attacks on our cities and communities.

Overnight, Russia used, among other weapons, three ballistic missiles with cluster warheads against Kyiv. These missiles are designed to detonate in the air as they spreading damage across an area 400 meters in diameter.

One of them struck Pechersk, Kyiv's historic center, hitting the area between the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Holy Presentation Monastery.

Monastery buildings, homes, shops, cafés, and other civilian infrastructure were damaged.

This is another extraordinarily revealing strike – revealing because it was no accident. The choice of weapon was deliberate, the choice of target area was deliberate, and so was the intent to inflict as much loss and damage on civilians as possible. There was no military target nearby, not even in theory, and the weapon was designed to cause widespread destruction. Russia has not changed the way it wages this war, and it is taking no steps that would signal a genuine desire to end it.

Throughout the day, air raid alerts have continued in Kyiv and many other cities. So have the strikes. In Kharkiv, a regular commuter train was hit. Dnipro, Marhanets, Mykolaiv, and Kherson, as well as cities and villages in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Rivne regions, came under attack.

Russia keeps targeting our energy infrastructure. Since October 11, there have been more than 170 strikes on critical energy facilities, even though we are shooting down a significant number of “shaheds” and some of the missiles. I thank all our friends around the world who are helping us restore our energy system.

Our intelligence services report that Russia has set priorities for further terror against Ukrainians in the coming weeks. Russia is clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air defense supplies from our partners. It is equally clear that when some partners ease the pressure on Russia, it only reinforces Putin's belief that his goals are within reach. We need different signals and different steps – stronger ones.

I have instructed the Ministry of Defense, together with the military command and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to brief our partners on every aspect of the real situation and the threats we face, based on intelligence data. It is important to speed up deliveries of defense packages that have already been approved. I thank all the leaders and countries that are helping!

Here are quotes from today's column by one of the main ideologues of the Russian World - Sergei Karaganov. It's titled "A Final Farewell to Europe".

I strongly recommend reading it.

"We would never have become Great Russia - the world's largest, most culturally, nationally, and y, united through a rigid vertical of power around the Russian people and language - were it not for the Mongolian political and ideological heritage."

"In the military doctrine there is a clear indication and, in case of extreme necessity, the readiness to deliver nuclear strikes against key European countries that are inflaming anti-Russian hysteria while simultaneously supporting the war in Ukraine. Our restraint and peacefulness of recent decades have shown themselves to be counterproductive. They contributed to the revival of the worst in European political culture. Tough deterrence is necessary regarding Europe."

The link is in the first comment.

Weidel: "Prolonging the war and shooting drones into the hinterland of Russia, destroying refineries, houses, and buildings near Moscow, is a huge provocation."

Host: "It's defending itself."

Weidel: "No, it's not."

Host: "Every night, drones and ballistic missiles rain down "This strategy is very risky, and we've been criticizing it. We want to end this war.

It doesn't help if a country [Ukraine] launches drone attacks against a country [Russia] that has nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense, it's very risky and very stupid.

We need to end this, and we need to actually put pressure on Ukrainian president to have the willingness to end the dying and stop this very risky strategy for all of Europe."🔚

Folks, here is Weidel's imaginary reality: black is white, the victim is to blame for the crime against them, and defending your home against a bloody, illegal invasion that murders children and razes towns is "stupid," while letting Russia occupy you and carry out a country-wide Bucha massacre is probably smart.

And defending yourself is risky! Risky, did you hear that? Well, no shit, just standing there and catching Russian ballistics with your face is risky, too. So we may as well take the risk and, hear me out, fight back?

​Please don't vote for this evil Russian appendix in Germany!

It’s now officially confirmed.

Tonight, russia struck Kyiv’s historic centre with an Iskander ballistic missile carrying a cluster warhead.

58 submunitions explode in mid-air, designed to inflict maximum casualties across a 400 × 400 metre area.

“This strike had no military o destroy part of the old city and injure as many people as possible,” said a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

No military objective. Just terror.

What the maniacal greed and hubris of Trump's White House looks like on the ground in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian soldier serving in Iraq in 2003. Ukraine deployed more than 6,000 troops to the U.S.-led Operation Iraqi Freedom; 18 were killed and 40 were wounded.

So tomorrow, the first tanker carrying 40,000 metric tons of Russian diesel is set to depart for the US. Let’s do the math.
​40,000 tons is roughly 300,000 barrels.

​The US consumes about 4 million barrels of diesel per day. That means this entire tanker covers less than two d.

​At the same time, the US exports around 1.5 million barrels of diesel a day—meaning this shipment is equivalent to just 4.5 hours of US exports.

​The voyage from Ust-Luga to US terminals takes 2.5 to 3 weeks. By the time the tanker arrives, the US will have exported over 4 million tons of its own diesel—a hundred times more than what this single tanker is delivering.

​So, one of the world's largest diesel exporters is buying diesel from an aggressor state just to cover two hours of domestic consumption? - Presidential Commissioner for Sanctions Policy Vladyslav Vlasiuk.

Disgusting: U.N. rapporteur on counterterrorism Ben Saul condemns Israel for waging a “vengeful war” against Hamas: “Hamas invaded Israel for 48 hours, and then was repulsed. Israel was going to be fine...”

In what world is Putin a "humanitarian?” He's assassinated political rivals and journalists, bombed hospitals, and started a war that has intentionally killed tens of thousands of innocent people, including women and children. He's a war criminal.

US Senator Thom Tillis blasted Steve Witkoff after he called Putin a "humanitarian." Tillis told Witkoff to ask Ukrainian families whose children Putin has kidnapped and murdered whether they agree with that description. #Ukraine