Kevin Rothrock

Trump's Iran War costs the U.S. $1.88 billion a day. At that rate, it will take less than 2 months to match the $109 billion sent to Ukraine over three years during the Biden admin. In only six days, the U.S. has already spent 10% of what it disbursed to Kyiv after Russia's Feb 2022 invasion.

"Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-tells-congress-no-sign-that-iran-was-going-attack-us-first-sources-say-2026-03-02/

Putin met with his Security Council today to discuss the US–Israeli bombing of Iran. It was over video link but behind closed doors. Doesn't seem like they released any photos or a list of all the participants. https://ria.ru/20260228/putin-2077453628.html

I can't speak for all Americans (thank God), but I think most of us subconsciously or otherwise don't feel that our country is at war unless we've got "boots on the ground," and probably not even then until there are lots of 'em.

Reuters reports that Ukraine was injecting some 40,000 metric tons of its own oil into the Druzhba pipeline on a monthly basis before Jan 27, when Kyiv says Russia attacked pumping installations in western Ukraine, halting the pipeline completely. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/druzhba-pipeline-carried-ukrainian-russian-oil-before-attack-sources-say-2026-02-27/

Wrote about a new investigation by T-invariant into Russian ROTCs and university administrators pressuring and trying to dupe students into "safe," supposedly one-year contracts with drone units. Who needs architects or dentists when there are UAVs that demand piloting?

https://meduza.io/en/brief/2026/02/28/this-was-russia-today

just an old lunatic elected by tens of millions of people, folks

RE: @kevinrothrock@infosec.exchange

Given the obstacles to using Max in the West, the fact that Russian authorities can easily have any undesirable org's channel shut down if it somehow gained an audience, and RKN's apparent VPN breakthrough, this bodes very badly for exiled media and the diaspora.

Sam Kriss remains one of the funniest living writers known to me. This report from Silicon Valley (where I grew up) is simply wonderful. https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee/

Preparing for a "possible Ukraine peacekeeping mission"? Sure, ya are, lil' buddy. You can be anything when you grow up!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/26/paratroopers-prepare-for-possible-ukraine-peacekeeping/

Fantastic reporting by Elizabeth Flock on the refugees trying to cross into Europe from Belarus. Lukashenko's callous, cynical "weaponization of migration" has unfortunately exposed the racism and hypocrisy underlying Polish and Baltic claims to human rights and rule of law.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/02/the-migrants-in-the-ancient-forest

Needless to say, the anti-migrant politics here might as well be a story about my own country, the USA.

Today's newsletter covers Meduza's interview with Maria Kolomychenko, a special correspondent at The Bell, about how Russia's crackdown on Telegram has apparently broken VPN circumvention and could even expose millions of users to "extremism" liability. https://meduza.io/en/brief/2026/02/27/this-was-russia-today

lol, OpenAI banned accounts linked to the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Rybar, which used ChatGPT to generate propaganda across three languages https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/df438d70-e3fe-4a6c-a403-ff632def8f79/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai.pdf

whoever at spotify decided that "short looping videos" should be the default setting deserves a raise — into a woodchipper

Potanin to photographer: "Make sure you get my gentler side."

We're coming up on the 14th anniversary of that time, three days after he was elected to a third presidential term, when Putin "joked" about "tightening the screws" upon returning to the Kremlin. "Don't get comfortable," he told a reporter. No fucking kidding.

"The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference." After all his "Russia hoax" moaning, what a world it will be if it's Trump who uses the specter of foreign interference to remake American voting. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-executive-order-activists/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

«Чубайс попросил Канаду снять с него санкции, потому что он "исторически" в оппозиции»

тогда надо не снять, а удвоить санкции против него

This week, Russia scholar and defense analyst Michael Kofman spoke to Meduza's Vladislav Gorin about the Kremlin's refusal to accept the apparent futility of its grinding invasion in Ukraine. Kofman described the challenges of deterring an enemy like Russia and explained Putin's long-term wager. https://meduza.io/en/brief/2026/02/26/this-was-russia-today

Citing two Kremlin sources, news outlet RBC reports that a "final decision" has been made to block Telegram in Russia, beginning in early April, though the platform will apparently be kept available to frontline soldiers in Ukraine for longer, given its logistical significance. https://t.me/rbc_news/143705

Police in Tver have reportedly arrested Ekaterina Duntsova, the journalist turned anti-war politician who tried but failed to register for candidacy against Putin in Russia's 2024 presidential election.

https://t.me/Rassvet_original/1286

A question for the military analysts out there: How do you think the U.S. military would fare against a foe with the manpower, weaponry, and foreign assistance of a nation like Ukraine? I know a true parallel is difficult here (are we assuming an invasion into Canada or Mexico? etc.), but I am curious if Ukraine's impressive capacity for limiting Russian invaders to a crawl is evidence of the country’s unique circumstances or a preview of how all major land wars play out with 21st-century tech.

"No model ever chose to fully accommodate an opponent or surrender." Did they train these things exclusively on Redditors and NAFOids? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2516885-ais-cant-stop-recommending-nuclear-strikes-in-war-game-simulations/

"Ukraine doesn't have nuclear weapons, unfortunately," is Zelensky's response to allegations from Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service that Britain and France are secretly transferring nuclear weapons technology to Kyiv, supposedly to make it look "the result of the Ukrainians' own development. He also calls on other nuclear powers, namely the USA, to convey more forcefully to Moscow that its nuke saber rattling is unacceptable.

https://www.rbc.ua/ukr/news/zelenskiy-vidreaguvav-dernu-ritoriku-rf-zokrema-1772023508.html

Latvian police and border patrol officers raided a hotel in Riga today and arrested North Korea specialist Andrey Lankov moments before he was due to deliver a lecture. He's somehow on the country's no-entry list and will now be dumped in Estonia. Lankov has dual Russian–Australian citizenship. https://www.rbc.ru/politics/24/02/2026/699de32b9a79473fe93e666b?from=from_main_4

An empire stretched thin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/23/dan-caine-iran-risk-trump/

A condensed version of Meduza's article on Russian "inspector satellites," ie the space espionage that has provoked outcry from the Europeans. "The Intelsat and Eutelsat satellites the Luch inspectors parked alongside are not purely civilian infrastructure." 👀

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/02/23/from-cold-war-interceptors-to-ukraine-how-russia-came-to-park-spy-satellites-next-to-the-west-s-most-sensitive-tech-in-orbit

Telegram founder Pavel Durov acknowledges Russia's accelerated, escalated censorship of Telegram. A noteworthy statement, given that he's recently focused more on criticizing Western regulators.