Matt Grady

@SpiesVespers Other than that, how was the Senate session, Mrs. Caesar?

Denis Alimov, FSB Alfa veteran and senior operative of Russia's new and "most secretive" assassination unit, walked into El Dorado Airport in Bogotá on Feb 24 looking like a tourist heading to Cartagena. He walked out in handcuffs. He was undone by Google Translate. 🧵New @TheInsider investigation with @DerSpiegel — thread below.

A Russian khazzak told me a post-soviet joke: A woman and her husband are sleeping in bed when she shoots up in a panic and rushes to the window. She throws the curtains open and sighs with relief. Instantly panic sets in again! she rushes out of the room! Her husband follows...

Most Russians have nothing against Americans. They’re usually curious, often friendly. The hostility you hear about tends to live more in television studios than in ordinary life. That said, one night, about half a decade ago, in a pub in Sochi (named Dublin as it happens), a very solid gentleman, the sort built like a substantial wardrobe, at least 100kg of it, came up to me, fixed me with a serious look, jabbed a finger into my chest, and announced that I was a "pindo" (a rude slang term for Americans) and should go back to "Pindostan." I told him, gently, that I was Irish. The transformation was instant. His face lit up, he threw his arms around me like we were long-lost brothers, and declared his deep admiration for the MMA fighter Conor McGregor. Sensing that this was not the moment for a nuanced discussion of McGregor’s personality, I agreed that Conor was indeed a great man and a credit to his country. For the rest of the evening he addressed me exclusively as "Conor" and kept the shots coming with the generosity of a man determined to honour his favorite Irishman. I knocked them back dutifully, though I never drink shots, out of a healthy instinct for self-preservation. I ran into him a few times afterwards around the city. Every time he spotted me, a grin would appear, the arm would go up in greeting, and you’d hear the same booming salute: "Conor!"

Parents have complained for decades that getting into an elite independent school in Manhattan is harder than getting into Harvard; for the wealthy parents who are competing to spend about $70,000 a year, it’s an infamously complicated and time-intensive game of tutoring and networking that involves preschoolers sitting for assessments and “interviews” just before nap time. But the February 2026 notification week for children who applied to kindergartens in the city was more brutal than expected. All month long, in Facebook groups like “Moms of the Upper East Side” and “UES Mommas,” parents of 4- and 5-year-olds had been venting about misguided expectations as they came to terms with getting wait-listed and rejected at the schools where they genuinely believed their children would soon enroll. “Any other moms feeling disappointed in the private school results today?” asked one mother who struck out in the process. A steady stream of commiseration filled the comments section. “So much hard work and time put in for a disappointing outcome.” “Many tears have been shed,” wrote another. “Not sure how to proceed.” “Confused as to who got in,” added one well-connected observer. Another parent wrote, “It’s a bloodbath this year.” Matt Stieb reports on why admissions to New York’s private kindergartens was unusually competitive this cycle: nymag.visitlink.me/WqTLzK

X is producing the best Iran coverage on earth right now but 90% is slop and most of mainstream media is too focused on political nonsense. As a Pentagon reporter & founder of the world’s most-read maritime news site, here’s who I actually trust on x:​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @MikeSchuler editor in chief of @gCaptain @mercoglianos, maritime and naval historian and host of shipping’s must watch YouTube channel Naval News @cdrsalamander, Navy’s longest running podcaster @thomasbsauer Navy Vet @BDHerzinger current navy @TheLtColUSMC @usmc_colonel @kaylahaas Marine Corps @CavasShips, top Navy podcasters @samlagrone @MalShelbourne US Naval Institute @__CJohnston__, Naval News @brentdsadler, Heritage Broader military news @Aviation_Intel The War Zone @TrentTelenko, former Pentagon insider @infantrydort, @KurtSchlichter @CynicalPublius Army @JeremyA46925042 Merchant Marine Captain @RobManess @DaleStarkA10 USAF Naval Aviation @TomcatJunkie @thestinkeye Former National Security Council @JoshuaSteinman, @EzraACohen OSINT @ianellisjones best maps ever @Schizointel solid naval osint @vcdgf555 all military OSINT @vtchakarova @Jkylebass geopolitics Solid Mainstream Media @loriannlarocco & @SullyCNBC CNBC @JavierBlas @TheStalwart Bloomberg New media: @DataRepublican - NGO and government watch @JackPosobiec, Navy Intel Vet @JesseKellyDC, marine @ShawnRyan762, Navy SEAL UK Navy and military @James_WE_Smith Kings College @TomSharpe134, Royal Navy Captain Shipping @typesfast, CEO Flexport @mintzmyer, Value Investors Edge @BartGonnissen Belgium Captain @ed_fin shipping analyst Transportation @FreightAlley Finance and commodities @biancoresearch - solid @chigrl - oil and commodities @JoshYoung oil This is just the short list. Who did I miss? Stay tuned for Part Two which I will post below later today.

Here’s a calisthenics circuit that hits everything: •12 push-ups •20 lunges (10/leg) •25 squats •25 crunches •50 jumping jacks •60s wall sit Do 3 rounds. Rest 1–2 minutes between. That’s it.

How to train every muscle group from home using dumbbells

Read this from beginning to end. It’s from the FBI interview of Christopher Steele in October 2018. It’s an interview of an FSB officer about Trump. The FBI obfuscated the original to make it difficult to read. They do this often with important information. Original in 2nd post.

I've been working on this for ages in various countries: the story of the intelligence buildup to Putin's 2022 invasion. How did the US and Britain find out so much, and why were Europe and Ukraine sceptical. It's a long one: theguardian.com/world/ng-inter…

Hemingway considered reading essential to every writer’s development. He was a voracious reader himself, even on days he wrote. He gave a 22-year-old aspiring writer a list of books to read, saying “Here’s a list of books any writer should have read as a part of his education… If you haven’t read these, you just aren’t educated. They represent different types of writing.”

Oleg Kalugin, a Soviet defector and former KGB Major General, served as Chief of Counterintelligence for foreign operations and supervised KGB intelligence activities in the United States. This is his assessment of the Russian Orthodox Church under Vladimir Putin.

And of course the best German captured conversation of all, I`m afraid as I cant draw I have asked Grok to make a funny cartoon based on the text. Which wasnt too bad in fact.

Before leaving for his #KGB spy assignment in Japan, Stanislav Levchenko was given this advice by one of his supervisors: "Stay away from #CIA... At best, you'll waste your time... Other officers trying to recruit Americans have been caught like flies in a honey pot."

Forget the $100,000 investing courses. In 1998, Warren Buffett quietly explained how to never lose money in just one hour. Almost nobody paid attention. The company built on those principles is now worth nearly $1 trillion. This is the closest thing to a cheat code you’ll ever see. Save this before it vanishes from your feed 👀

Yuri Andropov Dedicated Stalinist communist? The architect of capitalist perestroika? CIA plant? Simply a paranoid spook? Whatever the answer, Putin has always made it clear he admires Andropov most of all Soviet leaders Link to free article in reply

And you pretty much can't get a physical copy for under $100. But the pdf is in this Google Drive for free: drive.google.com/drive/mobile/f…

John Steinbeck, Six Rules for the Aspiring Writer

In Russia's Amur region, bears wandered into a camera trap in the Khingansky Nature Reserve. Some local media outlets claim they almost recreated Ivan Shishkin's famous “Morning in a Pine Forest”. Thoughts, folks?

Good Bye, Lenin! was released 23 years ago. Many East German viewers found it painfully accurate. The small details, jars, packaging, slogans, hit harder than the politics. The film became a cultural touchstone.