Halvor Nilsen 🇺🇦📎

Although he is my political opponent, it is still a sad sight to see the prime minister struggling with his own demons — a broken man. The man who, for three and a half decades, has taken on the role of representing the future of a nation was yesterday ranting nonsense at a Fidesz campaign event. He attacked those who disagree with him — people who, incidentally, represent the majority. @PM_ViktorOrban has lost control. Nobody wants a pro-Ukrainian government. What we all want is a functioning country: a country where the state protects its citizens, safeguards children, and brings criminals to justice. This is what the whole country wants. And to those who can no longer — or no longer wish to — provide this, we say: step aside with dignity.

Gary Kasparov at the NATO Public Forum: The liberation of Russia from Putin’s fascism will not start until the Ukrainian flag is raised over Sevastopol. Period. Anything else is wishful thinking. You have to kill the idea of empire in the minds of Russians. They have to understand the war is lost. Ukraine must win. Ukrainian victory includes three things: liberation, reparation, and justice.” The big debate is whether it’s Russia’s war or Putin’s war. Unfortunately, it’s Russia’s war. Every Russian, myself included, has a responsibility for the crimes committed in Ukraine. People who want to leave from Putin’s ‘North Korea’ to our, let’s say, virtual ‘South Korea’ have to say three things in five seconds without stuttering: The war is criminal; The regime is illegitimate; Crimea is Ukraine.

Operation Epic Fury Month 2 Begins Thanks for your support. As we enter month 2, we now have a much clearer idea of how things are progressing: Militarily - Goes against the narrative on here, but militarily things are going fine. Target selection could be improved and has been very polite thus far, but nothing is perfect. Iran is a country of over 90 million people (For example, in 1942 Nazi Germany had about 72 million people, or a more modern example would be Iraq in 2003 with 26 million), and US and Israeli losses thus far are very very very low. Some very stupid mistakes that we all saw coming, such as drones causing a greater impact, and very little mitigation done by the US, resulting in losses that didn't need to happen. Still ultimately small, but embarrassing! Economically - The refineries are actually mostly fine despite the crying. Lots of whining from oilys who have had it good for decades, but just get on with it. It works in their favour revenue wise, 100% of barrels at $75 or 50% of barrels at $150, same revenue to them. The strait being closed is a problem much more so for the countries NOT involved than the US. Politically - A mess, as expected because the US is a dumpster fire. Lots of whining from politicians across the world, but unless they get involved somehow they're just going to have to sit on the sidelines and watch as this plays out. Israel and Trump sucking up to Russia whilst Russia provides targeting data and intel to Iran is ultimately hilarious, and traitorous. At least Israel had the gall to strike the Caspian to stop a supply route... Things for the US to learn: Stop lying to us - it didn't work for Russia and turned the world against them, and it won't work for you. 'Damaged' E-3 Sentry turned out to be utterly destroyed. Stop lying to yourselves - Pull the head out of your arse, and realise that you aren't invulnerable, and you can be hit anywhere. Put better mitigation, especially at airfields, into effect. Improve your military PR - You've struck over ten thousand targets, and you're still putting out imagery of strikes on ancient aircraft or bulldozers. We can see the wiped bases on satellite Civilian casualties, whilst very low, still occurred - own up to them and take responsibility. It'll get found out in short order anyway. We can SEE that 99% of the strikes are insanely accurate. It puts 2003 Iraq strikes to shame with the accuracy of your strikes now - truly immense. But we know mistakes can and will happen. It's a war.

Estonia's Military Intelligence: Ukraine’s strikes on Russian ports in the Baltic Sea have halted oil exports through these hubs. This represents a significant blow to Russia, as an estimated 40–50% of its crude oil exports pass through Ust-Luga and Primorsk. 1/6

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Ukrainian forces continued their long-range strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure near the Baltic Sea on the night of March 26 to 27, marking the fourth strike in five days against Russian oil infrastructure in Leningrad Oblast. ⬇️ Geolocated footage published on March 27 shows fires at the Transneft-Port Primorsk oil terminal and Novatek Ust-Luga oil terminal, both in Leningrad Oblast. Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces struck the port of Ust-Luga and the Primorsk oil terminal overnight. Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation Head Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, who frequently reports on Russian and Ukrainian strikes, heavily implied on March 27 that Ukrainian forces likely struck the port of Ust-Luga overnight. Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko acknowledged the Ukrainian drone strike on Leningrad Oblast overnight on March 26 to 27, but did not specify any damage. Satellite imagery captured by @vantortech on March 27 shows a large fire spanning multiple oil storage tanks and creating dark smoke at the Ust-Luga oil terminal. The Ukrainian General staff confirmed on March 27 that Ukrainian strikes on the Kirishi oil refinery in Leningrad Oblast damaged two crude oil refining units, petroleum bitumen producing facilities, hydrotreating units, and gas fractionation units. A Russian milblogger admitted on March 27 that continued Ukrainian strikes on Ust-Luga demonstrate a major vulnerability in Russian air defenses, harshly criticizing Russia’s failure to develop the air defense capability to defend against the recent strikes.

Shocking to see that Norwegian public broadcaster NRK's Middle East reporter @SidselWold proudly joined a Hezbollah press tour in Lebanon yesterday. Yes - arranged by the Iranian terror proxy currently firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities and murdering civilians.

ARE ANALYSTS MISSING THE MOST DANGEROUS VARIABLE IN THIS WAR? 🚨 1. An overwhelming amount of analysis right now says the same thing: Iran has the upper hand. It controls the narrative. It holds the cards. Hormuz has become a bargaining chip that has clearly rattled Washington. And Donald Trump, many say, now looks trapped. 2. But there is a growing blind spot in that analysis. It risks forgetting the most basic fact of this conflict: the United States is still the most powerful military machine on the planet. By a margin that is not marginal. 3. This is not a middling power trying to negotiate its way out of a corner. This is a country that can decide to escalate in ways nobody else can match. 4. The second blind spot is the man in the Oval Office. Trump has shown repeatedly that he is unusually resistant to being shaped by events. He reacts to pressure by doubling down, not stepping back. 5. Third, he is a second term president. That matters enormously. There is no electoral future to protect (Midterms aside). No campaign calculus to temper risk. The incentives change completely when the next election does not exist. 6. Fourth, Trump is deeply allergic to anything that looks remotely like a concession or a climbdown. Even when the narrative is fluid and post truth, the optics of retreat are something he instinctively rejects. 7. Fifth, the longer the perception builds that Iran has outplayed Washington, the greater the pressure on Trump to do something bold. Something sudden. Something few in the analyst class are currently modelling. 8. Sixth, there is one objective that Washington almost certainly cannot walk away from now: Iran’s enriched uranium. Exiting this war without seizing or neutralising that stockpile would be seen in Trump’s mind as failure. 9. Seventh, Trump clearly believes he is doing the world a favour. In his telling this is not just America’s fight. It is a service to the Gulf, to Israel, to the broader order that fears a nuclear Iran. 10. Eighth, he has escalation heft where it matters. Israel is already in the fight. Saudi Arabia and key Gulf states may not be on the front line but their political and logistical weight sits firmly on one side of this equation. 11. None of this erases the reality that Iran’s Hormuz leverage has been effective. It has changed the tone of the war and forced hesitation in Washington. 12.But the emerging consensus that Tehran now holds all the cards may itself be the next analytical trap. 13.Because if the president leading the most powerful military on earth believes he cannot exit without a decisive move, the story of this war may still have a very sharp turn left.

40% of russian 🇷🇺 oil exports are currently stopped after Ukraine 🇺🇦 attacked the Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk crude oil ports. At the same time, the Druzhba pipeline remains closed and multiple refineries have been hit. This is a big blow to Russia. 🧵THREAD🧵1/15 ⬇️

Every nation has its founding myths; few have been so thoroughly imprisoned and crushed by them. The Palestinian national imagination was not born, as its admirers suppose, from the organic memory of the Nakba, a dispossessed people finding its voice. But it was constructed in the late 1960s by a handful of poets and militants who fused revolutionary Marxism with romantic nationalism and produced something unprecedented: a people whose very identity was indistinguishable from the act of armed struggle. That this identity was forged in the white heat of genuine suffering does not make it less artificial; if anything, it makes the artifice more tragic, because the suffering was real and the framework imposed upon it was not. What follows is an attempt to trace how this happened — how Palestine ceased to be a place and became a Revolution, and how a Revolution, by its very nature, could never become a place. Link to full essay below

150.000 uten strøm til varme og mobilitet i Ukraina akkurat nå. Imens forbereder 🇳🇴 seg for krig ved å bli strømavhengig, droppe tilfluktsrom og ruste opp forsvar/totalforsvar i sirupsfart. Hvor høye sivile dødstall er du villig til å akseptere ved et russisk angrep i kveld?

❗️Ust-Luga is on fire 🔥 🔥🔥 Primorsk + Ust-Luga = almost 50% of all russian oil exports! And Ust-Luga is the main export hub of liquefied gas in russia. Happy Wednesday everyone! Ukraine is WINNING 🥳🥳🥳

For the second time in 72 hours, Ukrainian drones have travelled approximately 1,000km to strike Russia's Leningrad Oblast. Since the weekend, Ukraine have struck and damaged three ports on the Baltic Sea, severely hampering Russia's attempt to profit from increased oil prices.

📌Latvia’s Ministry of Defense reports that a drone from Russian territory entered the country An explosion occurred in the Krāslava district, and drone debris has already been found. #Latvia #Russia

Great news! In response to the heinous attack that destroyed 4 Hatzolah ambulances in Golders Green, London, we're proud to announce the arrival of 5 brand new ambulances! We won't be intimidated - we'll keep growing & our services will expand tenfold, helping Jews & non-Jews alike!

For the first time, I heard in the mainstream media the accurate and real reason for the resistance of the mullahs and IRGC in Iran: “They’re fighting for their existence. They know that if they if they lose this war, their biggest problem will not be American bombs from the air. Their biggest problem will be their own citizens, (they) will hanging them from lampposts in Tehran. You know, they’ve done so much damage to their own country and their own people for so long that there’s a lot of resentment built up there they can’t afford to show any weakness.” #IranWar‌

The only thing that is laughably clear is that we are in the ultimate fog of war; two mirror image maximalist victory narratives are clashing from the same familiar set of channels. An anonymous “senior Iranian official” quoted by Al Jazeera and echoed in its Arabic ecosystem Al-Mayadeen channels says indirect messages have been exchanged via Egyptian and Turkish intermediaries. But only on the same familiar Iran terms of US admission of aggression, reparations, guarantees of no future actions and involvement in Iran’s affairs and so forth. No American set deadlines allowed and just for extra chuckles the option to plant mines in the Strait of Hormuz stays fully on the table “in anticipation of any reckless American action.” 😂 Okay. So roughly speaking that’s the same textbook Iranian maximalist war objective we’ve been hearing plenty of, essentially demanding a US surrender framed as “justice” and reparations. At the same time Trump, Western and Israeli reporting tells the very opposite story. We have Trump himself, Axios, Telegraph, US officials, Israeli media and Israeli unnamed sources and now Politico all simultaneously floating basically the mirror image maximalist Iranian surrender outline: - 5-year halt on ballistic missile development. - Permanent limit to no more than 1,000 missiles thereafter. - No nuclear program at all. - Remove all highly enriched uranium from the country. - No more funding or arming Axis proxies Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, etc. - Full reopening of Hormuz. Those two positions could not be more maximally structurally incompatible. If anything it underlines the dislocation story inside Iran and their Western diaspora lobby network. The anonymous Al Jazeera leak landed after today’s earlier Iranian signals on the heels of Trump’s Truth Social post, tarmac interview and Mississippi remarks. First, an hour after SecState Rubio reposted Trump’s all CAPS Truth Social post, IRIB hedged with “Foreign Ministry has neither affirmed nor denied” warning media not to carry false reports only to pivot 15 mins later to a hard denial exclusive: “no conversation has taken place… #fakenews.” A couple of hours later, Iranian Parliament’s house speaker Ghalibaf, the very man rumored to be the interlocutor, issued a full throated rejection. Then FM Araghchi flat out denied the story -- “no direct or indirect talks since Feb 28.” Now we have a fourth Iranian voice, another anonymous senior official, leaking the opposite story through Qatari outlets. Al Jazeera English itself is still running the official denial line, so even that network is carrying contradictory Iranian signals in different language channels. The bottom line is that the Iranian regime is not projecting a unified “all officials stand firmly” front as Ghalibaf projected. It’s leaking its dream deal through back channels while publicly denying the back channels even exist. Meanwhile the US side is doing the exact same thing in reverse, except with a chef’s kiss upper hand: Washington knows who its talking to or if its just sending the Iranians on a wild goose chase for “Who’s talking to the Americans?” And in Iran they are loosing it trying to figure out what they themselves are doing. The “talks” may or may not be real, but the contradictory leaks and frustration are giving us the clearest read yet on just how dislocated the Islamic Republic is under kinetic pressure. An Iranian insider openly warned: “Do not collaborate with the enemy. Do not assassinate Dr. Ghalibaf’s character.” For all we know Washington is talking to, as Trump put it, “the country of Iran” and it’s someone they expect to take over from a flailing, fragmenting regime. Meanwhile US forces continue to swarm the region after Trump’s disruptive 48 hour ultimatum pushed the IRGC to tip their hand and publish a 14 site target deck that included the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant and desalination plants across the Gulf.

What we are seeing right now with a large element of Special Operations Forces pushing to the Middle East is not just routine military movement. It is a deliberate positioning of capability, and more importantly, decision making power, at the highest level. The surge of at least 35 C-17 flights from key installations across the United States into Israel and Jordan strongly indicates the potential formation of a Special Operations Joint Task Force (SOJTF) or, if allied partners are involved, a Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF). That distinction matters, but the implication is the same. This is not a conventional buildup. This is the architecture required to execute decisive operations. Special Operations Forces operate fundamentally differently than conventional military units. A traditional force buildup of brigades, divisions, armored units, signals preparation for large scale, sustained ground combat. That is not what this is. A SOJTF or CJSOTF is designed for precision, speed, and strategic impact. It brings together elite elements from across the services: Army Special Forces, Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Tactics, under a unified command structure that can execute complex missions with minimal footprint but maximum effect. These formations are built to dismantle networks, eliminate remaining high value targets, enable partner forces, and create cascading operational advantages without requiring a massive ground invasion. The inclusion of the 82nd Airborne Division in this movement is also telling. The 82nd is not being positioned as the main effort, but rather as an uplift and contingency force. Their role is to provide rapid reinforcement, secure key terrain, respond to escalation, and enable the freedom of maneuver for special operations elements. They are there to support and stabilize, not to lead a conventional campaign. This combination gives the President something critically important: options. A SOJTF or CJSOTF provides the ability to act quickly without committing to a large scale war, apply precise force where it matters most, scale operations up or down based on conditions, and achieve strategic objectives without the political and human cost of a full conventional deployment. Most importantly, it creates a pathway to victory without a massive ground footprint. Victory in this context does not mean occupying terrain with large formations. It means achieving decisive outcomes: neutralizing threats, collapsing hostile networks, and shaping the environment through targeted, intelligence driven operations. That is exactly what Special Operations Forces are built to do. If the objective is to finish the job, this is the most effective way to do it. A SOJTF or CJSOTF allows the United States to bring its most capable and adaptable forces to bear, while avoiding the risks and long term commitments associated with conventional boots on the ground warfare. This is not escalation for its own sake. It is precision positioning for decisive action, and anyone saying any different is either doing so out of ignorance or because they want to use any force movement into the Middle East as a club against the President.

Francesca Albanese appeared today at the United Nations Human Rights Council to present her annual report. I was the first NGO to take the floor: “Ms. Albanese, in your report on torture, why is there not one single mention of Hamas’ horrific torture of Israeli hostages? You’ve said: ‘It’s not in my mandate.’ But on March 4th, you signed a UN statement condemning US and Israeli strikes in Iran. Are you mandated to speak on events a thousand miles away from your focus area, and not to say one word on the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th, and for two years after in their Gaza tunnels? And when you choose to speak on Iran, why is it only to defend the regime—after you refused to say a single word for the thousands of protesters they massacred? One year ago, the Council President announced that he spoke to you about your conduct, and that you acknowledged his considerations. However, on September 15, you said ‘380,000 children under five’ were killed in Gaza. Are you aware, this is more than the entire population of children under five in Gaza? On October 22, you reposted this statement: ‘Israel is the incarnation of evil.’ Yes or no, is this still your position? On January 6, you reposted this: ‘Israel is pure evil in a way the world has never seen before.’ Yes or no, is this still your position? Canada and Germany condemned you for antisemitism and Holocaust inversion. The French Prime Minister has called for your resignation. The UK has called for an investigation. Italy, Netherlands, Argentina and others condemned your conduct. When so many democracies speak with one voice, the problem is not them—it’s you.” Albanese did not respond.

Good!