Sustainability, history, pragmatism. 🌎🏺📚
Here and Now
Joined November 2016
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Ask your State Rep to bring the Sanctioning Russia Act to the floor and vote for it. It targets Russia’s financial sector, defense-industrial base, shadow fleet and those responsible for abducting Ukrainian kids, without requiring new American spending. americancoalitionforukraine.…
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Ol Trueshine retweeted
BREAKING: The U.S. is to seek Putin’s ‘blessing’ for Europe to join future peace talks for Ukraine.
vist.ly/5sbcu
Ol Trueshine retweeted
We keep hearing again that Russia supposedly needs security guarantees. Even though no one has attacked Russia for many decades. Since the Second World War, Moscow has not gone through even one decade without starting a war or using military force against another country.
So when the Russians now talk about a security architecture for themselves, or about security guarantees for Russia – they are hardly talking about real security. And peace.
What they really want – is to freely interfere in the affairs of other countries, and to use force whenever they want, and to make sure that no one can support liberty inside Russia because Putin wants to keep his personal power forever and pass on his imperialist and, in many ways, simply fascist views to the next generations.
From a speech at the Danish Folketing. (3/3)
Ol Trueshine retweeted
When I received the second report from our negotiating team after their meetings in Abu Dhabi, they told me that the Russians think and say they have already occupied half of Donbas, which remains under our control. These were military officers, Russian intelligence, and they were serious about it. Our team told them, “We don’t know how you can even say such things. We have video footage, images, other things proving that these areas are under our control.”
This is the problem. Putin lives in a different reality. Of course, he will be sharing with the Americans that he needs one or two months to fully occupy the east of Ukraine. I can draw a picture for him too where I fully occupy Russia. But it’s not true. What was good is that the American side confirmed the Ukrainian assessment of what is happening on the battlefield.
This is why we need to sit and speak at the level of leaders. There are a lot of questions. Like we spoke about the city of Kherson that is divided by the river today. The Russians control one bank, we control the other. But people want to live united on both banks. This is a Ukrainian city. Such issues are sensitive, but we have to speak about them. I think that tomorrow the teams will discuss the possibility of meeting at the level of leaders. I'm not sure that Russia is ready, but we will raise this topic.
From a conversation with journalists.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk:
Trump promised to end the war in 24 hours. Now he has decided to finance it. These are already the longest 24 hours in human history.
Witkoff called putin a humanitarian. I have interviewed hundreds of people released from russian captivity. They were beaten, raped, locked in wooden boxes, had their fingers cut off, their fingernails ripped out, and were tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. One woman described how her eye was gouged out with a spoon.
What is happening now is an imitation of a peace process.
I met a five-year-old girl in Kyiv. The russians abducted her mother because of her pro-Ukrainian views, tortured her, and repeatedly gang-raped her. They then took her to russia and fabricated a criminal case against her.
The girl hugged me, burst into tears, and began begging: “Please, bring my mommy back.” I am a human rights lawyer, but I have no legal tools to force russia to return her. I hugged the girl and promised that we would fight for her mother.
Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was my friend and colleague. She traveled to the occupied territories to tell the truth about russian crimes. She was abducted, tortured, and secretly transferred to russia. She was held without formal charges and without contact with the outside world.
She was denied medical care. She weighed just 30 kilograms. The russians refused to return her body to her parents for six months. When they finally did, several internal organs, her eyes, her brain, and part of her trachea were missing. We still do not know how she died.
Viktoriia believed that the truth could save thousands of lives. That people in other countries, once they learned the truth, would make the right decisions.
My friend and teacher, Professor Ihor Kozlovskyi, spent 700 days in russian captivity. For months, he was held alone in a small, dark basement cell without windows or fresh air. Rats crawled out of the sewer.
He gave philosophy lectures to the rats just to hear a human voice. He was tortured so severely that after his release, he had to learn to walk again.
Kozlovskyi told me: “Everything I have experienced does not make me see myself as a victim. The foundation of our existence is dignity. And dignity is action.”
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Trump will attack just about anyone, but he can never bring himself to criticize Putin. We all know why.
Putin’s puppet
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Thank you, Mr. Kushner. Those five principles are important. However, Moscow subscribed to these principles in documents signed in 1975 (Helsinki Final Act) and 1990 (Charter of Paris).
The problem isn't agreeing to principles, but Moscow's failure to abide by them. 🧵 /1
President Trump today advanced an important discussion with several European leaders about the need for a broader European security architecture that can help establish the conditions for lasting peace.
Building on his leadership and the substantive work undertaken this week in Brussels with Ukraine, NATO, and our European partners, @SEPeaceMissions and I wanted to share some of the objectives guiding our ongoing discussions.
For more than 30 years, Europe and Russia have struggled to establish a sustainable security framework. Decades of mistrust, competing security concerns, and the devastating consequences of this war make this an extraordinarily difficult challenge, but one that is essential to lasting peace.
Our objective is to develop practical arrangements that address the security concerns of all sides, reduce the risk of future conflict, and create a more stable and predictable security environment.
We are exploring five principal goals: permanent security consultations, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, and an enduring framework for long-term European security and stability.
Any arrangements must fully respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independent decision-making of every nation. Each country will retain authority over its own security and alliances, and no country would have a veto over another’s sovereign choices. NATO will remain central to European collective defense, and this initiative would build upon existing institutions and commitments.
We will continue consultations through the Shell Bay format with Ukraine, NATO, the EU, and our European partners, expanding engagement to ensure that all relevant perspectives and ideas are considered. We will also engage Russia as part of the peace negotiations.
Next week in Abu Dhabi, the United States will convene the first trilateral peace discussions with Ukraine and Russia since February. All parties remain intensely engaged in preparing for substantive and productive negotiations. We will consult closely with our European partners on the sidelines and, if progress is made, aim to move toward a broader multilateral format with their direct participation.
These ideas continue to evolve, and we welcome thoughtful input. Creating the right structure will be critical to ending this war and transitioning from conflict toward conditions that make possible a durable peace.
This is difficult, detailed work. There are no easy solutions. But the opportunity to help end this devastating war and build a foundation for a more peaceful, secure, and prosperous Europe for generations to come makes it a challenge well worth undertaking.
We will see how these discussions develop and continue working intensively with all parties toward President Trump’s objective of a comprehensive and lasting peace.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Ceding Ukrainian land for peace is just abstract words. It’s not only about reality, even more about philosophy. Putin was talking about Donbas, but then he decided to occupy Kyiv, our capital. His words were about Donbas, but the reality was about Kyiv. He kept saying he was defending Russian-speaking people and then tortured hundreds and thousands to death in Bucha and other places. So that wasn’t about Russian-speaking people.
This is why when Americans asked, “Can you exchange Donbas for security?” I said right there, “Can you tell me what it means? What security? NATO?”
“Not NATO, but similar to NATO.”
“Similar? But you don't want the answer about Donbas to be ‘similar.’ You want a clear answer about Donbas. This is your goal. And this is Putin’s goal, for today. What will you do if we have security guarantees but not NATO?”
They took our nuclear weapons. I'm not a fan of nuclear weapons. I think the world would be a better place without them. But the Russians took our nuclear weapons, didn’t they? They did. Then they stopped our integration into Europe, then prevented us from being in NATO. And in the end they occupied us. This is why it’s an abstract question. Nobody trusts Putin to stop if we leave Donbas. He will pause. Then he will come back in one year, two years, or five years. And who will be guilty?
From an interview with DR Nyheder. (2/3)
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Billboards reading "WHY IS TRUMP SELLING OUT AMERICA TO PUTIN?" have been spotted in Illinois, Atlanta, and Florida.
The message and imagery are directly linked to recent geopolitical decisions that have drawn significant backlash from critics, including Ukrainian-American and Eastern European communities.
Reportedly the organization behind the campaign is called Home of the Brave. It has also produced a video ad and launched a dedicated website titled "Why Is Trump Selling Out America to Putin?" You can visit the website here: whyputinfirst.org
The organization also published an article explaining the reasoning behind the campaign:
newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/…
I don't know much about this organization or where else these billboards have appeared. If you have any additional information, please share it in the comments!
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth, and anyone else who played a role in cutting off Ukraine's ability to defend itself must answer for it. Congress must get to the bottom of this.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Kushner three days ago: “Any arrangements must fully respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independent decision-making of every nation.”
Kushner now: “While fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation.”
Respect of the *territorial integrity* of Ukraine somehow got lost on the way to Abu Dhabi.
President Trump is determined to bring an end to this horrible war, which has caused enormous loss of life, destruction, and suffering. We are working hard to find a negotiated solution that can deliver lasting peace and create the conditions for a sovereign, secure, and prosperous Ukraine within a more stable European security environment.
Before beginning the two days of trilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi, @SEPeaceMissions and I will meet with our partners from Ukraine, the EU, NATO, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy to continue the close consultation and coordination we have undertaken on European security and Ukraine’s postwar future over the past several weeks.
These will be the first trilateral talks since February. Building on our separate consultations with both sides, our objective is to bring Ukraine and Russia together to discuss directly their postwar security concerns, proposals, and potential solutions. We hope these discussions will identify areas of common ground, advance practical solutions, and build momentum toward the next phase of negotiations.
Ultimately, achieving a comprehensive and lasting settlement will also require direct engagement between Russia and our European partners on the broader security arrangements that affect them. We hope the discussions in Abu Dhabi will create the conditions for that engagement to begin in the near future, as part of a broader multilateral process.
Our work has focused on four interconnected priorities: ending the fighting, developing credible postwar security guarantees and arrangements that reduce the risk of renewed conflict, preparing a comprehensive economic and prosperity plan for Ukraine, and advancing humanitarian measures to alleviate suffering and address the human consequences of this war.
Together with Ukraine, the EU, and other European partners, we are working to address Ukraine’s substantial postwar fiscal and reconstruction needs, support critical infrastructure, attract private investment, and create the conditions for long-term economic growth and self-sufficiency.
We are also working with the parties on important humanitarian issues, including the return of prisoners and civilians, and practical measures to alleviate suffering and reduce the human cost of this conflict.
An important part of this process is encouraging all parties to begin thinking seriously about what comes after the war. By discussing postwar security, economic recovery, and the mechanisms needed to prevent future conflict, we hope to shift the focus from managing the war toward building the foundations for a durable peace.
The existing European security agreements and institutions provide an important foundation for this work. We want to build upon what has worked, identify where existing mechanisms have fallen short, and what practical improvements are needed to make them more effective in the future. Our discussions will focus on stronger consultation, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, and reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, while fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation.
This is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated conflict. We recognize the difficult decisions ahead and are approaching these discussions with determination and realism. Our hope is to make meaningful progress, establish a practical pathway forward, and help create the conditions for a lasting peace.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
🇺🇸🤝🇷🇺 4 yrs of mass graves, deported children & torture. Trump sends his real-estate agent to discuss russia’s "security concerns"
🇷🇺 just bombed a centre for disabled children in Kremenchuk while Kushner talks "postwar prosperity"
Profits from 🇺🇦 blood. Before it’s even dry
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Leadership is set at the top of an organization. Organizations take on the personality of their leaders because subordinates see which behaviors are rewarded-punished, and anyone else quits or gets pushed out. Under Susie Wiles, the Trump admin White House was cheap. I have always said I don't care about corruption as long as we are getting results. If we unlocked $100 trillion in reindustrialization, I don't care if people get a cut. But it was worse than that. Susie Wiles the Big Pharma lobbyist was put in to cover up the Covid lockdown-vaccine crimes. She existed to prevent radical change. Her Vanity Fair interview was intended to signal to the Left that she was their friend on the inside, and it worked. Democrats never attacked her.
I've been hearing from donors who went to White House events that they couldn't get results and they were getting shaken down for tiny amounts of money and they showed up idealistically wanting to help save America and they left the event feeling depressed, gross. We had good low-level and mid-level officials placed at the Trump admin and everything they did was being blocked. I talked to heroic, badass soldiers who were trying to join ICE and Border Patrol who were mysteriously getting blocked. Two of my FrogTwitter mutuals tried to get a job at the White House in 2025 but they had been doxxed, and Susie Wiles used some funny tweets as an excuse to block them.
People have been sharing these stories with me for 2 years now. Friends have been asking me to attack her, and I said no chance, this is an unwinnable battle, it's not worth the effort. But I never said anything because Susie Wiles was untouchable. She was a bully and everyone was afraid of her. She used her power to humiliate and punish people, often for arbitrary reasons.
That's why she went down the way she did.
When we started attacking her, and memeing "Susie Wiles must Go" in funny iterative loops, then Susie Wiles had spent every day bullying and extorting people behind the scenes. It's an open secret. But as soon as she stumbled, while she was still getting results from the midterms, I started tearing into her.
For various reasons, I knew she was about to come for us and the establishment was going to start leaking and purging the grassroots. So I did it to them first. Then all of my friends joined in. Then this whole ecosystem dogpiled her. Then connected people saw she was vulnerable, and they had a chance to take revenge for vendettas and past humiliations. Susie Wiles started leaking to various media surrogates (hello Rebeka Zeljko), and she was trying to build a case that the Iran War had lost the midterms because Pete Hegseth didn't win fast enough. But at that point it was too late because all of the crowd's momentum was against her. When it went on Fox News and the New York Times and Joe Rogan, she was finished. Trump actually sees that. Trump doesn't see any of our tweets because Susie Wiles has been blocking his information flow, and everyone with access to Trump was ether compromised or terrified of Susie Wiles the Bully. And Trump would not have listened before the midterm landslide disaster. In the final day, the incentives flipped. At first, everyone was scared of attacking Susie Wiles the Bully. But by the end, everyone wanted to get in on the action because they could see she was going down so they wanted to jump in late and get a few shots in and claim they brought her down themselves.
Blood in the water, sharks chasing.
Leadership is set at the top of an organization. Organizations take on the personality of their leaders. Now the Trump White House will take on the ruthless, obsessive personality of Stephen Miller. Democrats are terrified.
Stephen Miller is the right man to lead us in this hour. He is currently living on a military base because Leftists keep trying to assassinate him. He knows what time it is. Trump is the man with the IMAGE, and Stephen Miller is the man to run the MACHINE. They're a dangerous pair. This is finally a winning team.
It's total bullshit we threw the lead and now we have to play from behind. But Trump is at his best under pressure. We can do this. We can win.
We have another advantage. Stephen Miller has watched everyone reveal themselves in petty corruption for the past 2 years. He knows exactly who to purge. He's been making lists.
I have total confidence in Stephen Miller and President Trump.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Governor DeSantis says the NUMBER ONE reason Republicans lost is corruption like Susie Wiles lobbying schemes, insider trading and prediction markets.
DeSantis says you are going to find out the extent of it when Democrats start investigating.
“Think about it. You show up to Congress. You've never displayed any investment acumen in your life. All of a sudden, you're meeting Warren Buffett with this suspiciously timed trade.
Oh! A company that is actually under one of your committee's jurisdictions. That is just something. And then you see all the other things. And you're going to see a lot more in the news, I think, in the next few months. And that's going to be the focal point, probably, of the Democrats' investigations and oversight.
But the reality is that was the number one issue that voters thought was important. It was even more important, if you look at the polling, than economy. And that was very high, too. And then it was just general lack of confidence in Republicans beyond that.
I get elected to Congress in 2012, sold the stocks. I’ve never traded a stock in elected office. Why? Because I don't want to be in a situation where I do something and then, oh, you did this and you voted this way, you did that. I’ve never done it.
I declined the pension as a member of Congress and the health care. In governor, we've increased pay for state employees a bunch of times. I never took it for governor. My salary is the same as it was there.
The idea that public service is a way to leverage power to enrich yourself was anathema to what our founders believed.
And so I've tried to lead by example with how I behave. But what you're seeing in Washington is clearly not consistent with what our founders believe was necessary to kind of create a foundation for a successful republic. So I think we should ban the congressional stock trading.
You should not allow them to be making money on prediction markets. You should not be able to allow the way the lobbyists and everything happens. So there's definitely things that need to be cleaned up.
Republicans should be leading this. Weren't we the ones saying, drain the swamp not a few years ago? And yet the Democrats now are able to take that and they're making hay out of it. But that was a big issue.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Ol Trueshine retweeted
"My three favorite Democrats, purely in terms of policy outcomes, are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi Gabbard."
— JD Vance, 2019
Once a woke, always a woke.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
Q: President Zelensky's country was actually invaded by Russia.
Trump: When they had their first meeting, there was great disrespect shown to Russia.
Ol Trueshine retweeted
PREDICTION: Ukraine is going to come under intense pressure to surrender over the next two months.
Ukrainian intelligence believes fascist Russia’s dictator Putin has stockpiled enough ballistic missiles and other strategic weapons for a campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure over the winter. The aim is to make major Ukrainian cities unlivable in the winter months, and provoke a mass refugee crisis from Ukraine into Europe that will further destabilize the political situation in the EU.
Why over the next two months? For these three main reasons:
1. The next U.S. Congress sits in early January 2027. The Democrats will then have majorities in the Senate and House, and thereafter Trump’s administration could well be seriously constrained. Before that, however, there are two months left for the Trump administration to provide useful aid to the Kremlin. That includes withholding Patriot system interceptors, which will make Ukraine more vulnerable to missile attacks.
2. With key EU member states heading into critical electoral cycles in early 2027, political leaders in Western Europe will be under immense pressure to prioritize domestic economic demands over underwriting Ukraine’s defense and state budget, leaving Kyiv facing a catastrophic funding shortfall just as its winter needs reach their peak.
3. Ukraine's rapidly maturing deep-strike campaign – which has systematically taken offline nearly a third of Russia's refining capacity while striking missile propellant plants and airfields deep inside the Russian interior – is inflicting severe domestic economic and operational costs on Moscow. The Kremlin calculates that its narrow window to force a Ukrainian capitulation is now in the next few months, before Kyiv’s expanding domestic long-range missile and drone capabilities permanently erode Russia's own industrial stability and home-front security.
This upcoming period will thus be an intense attritional race between Putin's attempt to weaponize winter and Western flaccidity, and the West's ability to sustain Kyiv until these fleeting strategic windows close.
