Jarno Hartikainen

Why would Russians shut down Telegram? I think it’s to push through unpopular decisions. Possibly ending the war in one format or another. Or, on the contrary – escalating it. In that case, it would mean even broader mobilization. That would mean people from Moscow and St. Petersburg being sent to the front – and bodies returning to Moscow and St. Petersburg. In other words, he will no longer be able to avoid mobilization in the major cities he previously tried to bypass. Another scenario is that, not knowing how society will react, they are preparing for one or another outcome of the war. Through their propaganda, they have stirred up a radicalized segment of society. This share is quite significant – I think around 20–25 percent. In my view, these people are definitely not ready to end the war. There is also a segment of society that would react negatively to escalation. In my view, these are the two main scenarios, though of course there may be other motivations. And soon we will see which scenario Putin has chosen. From a conversation with journalists (4/5).

In the best case scenario, Trump struck a deal to reopen a Strait that was open before the pointless war he started, with the IRGC demonstrating its control over the Strait and potentially extracting fees plus sanctions relief. Thousands of innocents - including hundreds of children - dead in Lebanon and Iran for no reason. U.S. troops killed and wounded. U.S. embassies and bases in the Middle East badly damaged. U.S. standing in the world obliterated. U.S. munitions badly depleted. Hundreds of billions spent. Prices up everywhere. More global economic fallout to come. Putin strengthened and enriched. Just a catastrophic situation even in the best of circumstances. A profoundly shameful episode in American history no matter what happens next.

I've stopped reading Gulf war headlines. Here's what I track instead. We run an India-focused equity fund. 85% of India's crude comes from imports. Half of that normally passes through Hormuz. So yes — this crisis is personal. But the information environment right now is garbage. Trump says the war ends tomorrow. Iran says Hormuz is shut forever. One analyst says $150 oil, another says $60. You can't build a portfolio view on this. So I've narrowed it down to 4 signals. These are priced by people with real money on the line. They don't lie. 1. Ship insurance premiums through Hormuz This is the single best signal. Lloyd's underwriters have billions at stake on every pricing call. Before the war, insuring a tanker through Hormuz cost 0.25% of the ship's value. Today it's 3.5–10% — and almost nobody is buying. A $100M tanker that cost $250K to insure now costs up to $10M. When this drops below 2%, the people with the most to lose are telling you it's getting safer. No press conference can replicate that. 2. How many ships are actually crossing Every ship carries a GPS tracker (AIS). You can count exactly how many cross Hormuz each day. Before: 100+. Now: 8. That's a 92% collapse. You can't spin a ship being somewhere it isn't. Iran is letting some Chinese and Indian ships through, but it's a trickle. When this number crosses 30–40, trade is resuming. You can track this free on the WTO Hormuz Trade Tracker. 3. Paper oil vs real oil This one most people miss entirely. Brent crude (the headline price) is at $112. But Dubai physical — what Asian buyers actually pay for delivered oil — is at $126. That's a $14 gap. It exists because Trump's comments keep pushing paper prices down. Traders call it jawboning. But the refiners buying cargo aren't getting any discount. If you're looking at Brent to assess India's oil bill, you're looking at the wrong number. 4. The mid-April cliff Multiple emergency measures expire around the same time. The 400 million barrel SPR release runs dry ~April 15. The US waiver letting India buy Russian crude expires. Formosa Plastics has declared force majeure from April 1. Right now these stopgaps are keeping the supply gap at ~5 mb/d. Without them, BCA Research estimates it doubles to 10 mb/d — the largest crude disruption ever. If Hormuz doesn't reopen by mid-April, we're in uncharted territory. Bottom line: track the insurance premium, the ship count, the paper-physical spread, and the April timeline. Everything else is noise.

Our European allies have lost their way. It’s time to build partnerships we can count on when it matters most, and I believe President @realDonaldTrump will put us on a stronger path forward.

J.D. Vance in April 2025: “I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq. Frankly, if the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq…I don’t want the Europeans to just do whatever the Americans tell them to do. I don’t think it’s in their interest, and I don’t think it’s in our interests, either.” unherd.com/2025/04/transc…

Oleksandr Yakovenko, the founder of TAF Industries, one of Ukraine's largest drone makers wrote a good response to @RheinmetallAG's Papperger's irritating statement. I used AI to translate it for you. It is worth reading in full. "Dear Mr. Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, When you called Ukrainian drone manufacturers “Ukrainian housewives with 3D printers in their kitchens,” you demonstrated how deeply the European defense establishment still fails to understand the nature of modern warfare. This is not about emоtions. This is about battlefield reality. Here are the figures your industry refuses to acknowledge: In 2025 alone, Ukrainian drones carried out 819,737 confirmed strikes. They accounted for 90% of all combat losses of the Russian army—more than all other types of weapons combined. A single company, TAF Industries, produces up to 100,000 FPV drones per month. Over any given 90-day period, the products of my company alone have more confirmed hits than your entire fleet of equipment over its entire history of combat use across all conflicts. And most importantly—I built this company and achieved these results in two years, not fifty. Think about that. Our drones achieve greater kinetic effect in three months than your flagship platforms have in half a century. Why? Because the battlefield has changed, while your business model has not. Russian electronic warfare has rendered GPS-guided Western munitions (Excalibur, GMLRS, etc.) almost ineffective. Expensive and complex systems designed for wars with air superiority and conventional “peer-on-peer” conflict have become easy targets for drones costing $500–2,000 that attack them from above. The cost-effectiveness ratio has been turned upside down: one 120mm Rheinmetall shell or one anti-tank missile costs more than a dozen of our drones—yet our drones still prevail. This is not a “Lego game.” This is industrial Darwinism in real time. We iterate weekly. We lose factories to missile strikes and rebuild them within weeks. We print parts in basements and deploy 100,000 strike systems per month, while your engineers still require 3–5 years and hundreds of millions of euros to certify even minor upgrades. The war in Ukraine is not a temporary anomaly. It is the first true drone-industrial war. And it has already proven that outdated European platforms—no matter how expensive or “serious”—are becoming increasingly irrelevant if they do not integrate the very technologies you are mocking. So when you say “this is not innovation,” I hear something else: “We do not want to admit that the future is being written in Ukrainian workshops, not in Düsseldorf offices.” The hashtag #MadeByHousewives is trending for a reason. Because these “housewives” destroy more enemy equipment every month than entire European armies do over full campaigns. And they do so while your industry continues to sell 20th-century solutions at 21st-century prices. The invitation stands, Mr. Papperger. Stop laughing at the kitchen table. Come and learn how the war of tomorrow is actually fought. Because the next time someone asks, “Who needs tanks in the age of drones?”, the answer may be simpler than you think: Those who still believe in 1979 will lose to those who are building in 2026. With respect (but with facts), Oleksandr Yakovenko Founder of TAF Industries One of those “Ukrainian housewives”" pravda.com.ua/columns/2026/0…

Trump is starting to resemble Yeltsin, but without the ability to blame the vodka

Impressive reporting by @VSquare_Project , showing how Hungary's FM @FM_Szijjarto is behaving very much like Lavrov's asset. Kremlin Hotline: Hungary colluded with Russia to delist sanctioned oligarchs, companies and banks - VSquare.org

This by Rheinmetall CEO is precisely the arrogance that will come to haunt 🇩🇪. It was arrogance vis-à-vis Chinese competitors that helped bring German carmakers in the ditch they are in. And it‘s this type of arrogance vis-à-vis lessons learned by Ukrainians that will cost us.

This is Marco Rubio explaining how the USA promised to defend Ukraine forever if they got rid of their nuclear arsenal left after the Soviet Union fell. This is why lil marco was sinking into the couch. He was hoping we wouldn’t find it…so don’t RT right now this very second.

Historic leadership happening here

Growing concern in Brussels Orban will “do a Merz” if he loses elections on 12 Apr Merz used outgoing parliament to abolish debt brake. Orban could use his supermajority to make himself President with far-reaching executive powers, then veto everything @magyarpeterMP tries to do

🇫🇮 Finland cancels the project to move the election information system to 🇺🇸Amazon's cloud service due to changes in "international political situation". The 2027 parliamentary elections will be conducted using the current election information system. hs.fi/politiikka/art…

Steve Bannon: “We can use this, ICE helping at airports, as a test run, a test case, to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterms. Mike Davis: “I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places” Saying the quiet part out loud.

The potential next president of France (or the puppet-master behind the president) expresses her support to Orbán, who blocked a crucial financing to Ukraine.

Operation Epic Fury shows the price that America would pay if it fully withdrew its military presence from Europe. U.S. bombers, drones and ships have been fueled, armed and launched via bases in the U.K., Germany, Portugal, Italy, France and Greece, officials say. Attack drones are being directed from a sprawling U.S. base at Ramstein in Germany, the nerve center of America’s operations against Iran, according to German and U.S. officials. Heavy B-1 bombers have been photographed loading munitions and fuel at RAF Fairford in the U.K. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is currently docked at a naval base in Crete wsj.com/world/europe/e…

Extraordinary. On Sunday Hungary's FM @FM_Szijjarto called WaPo scoop about his phone calls with Russia's Lavrov "fake news". In this video interview he confirms that he indeed "coordinated" with Lavrov.

BREAKING: Just five minutes before Trump's announcement to halt the attacks on Iran, massive trades reportedly hit the market. In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold. These orders were 4–6x larger than anything else at the time. The trader seemingly made huge gains. Unusual.

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks.

France is the second biggest target of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) globally, behind Ukraine according the the EEAS Very interesting report on FIMIs, their networks and methodologies And a reminder that France still matters enough to be targeted!