Silicon Curtain

2025-11-04 | Silicon Wafers 048 | DAILY UPDATES | We’re zeroing in on the Black Sea in today’s episode, much like Ukrainian drones. Ukraine’s sea-drone campaign has lit up Russia’s oil hub at Tuapse, with a tanker fire, damaged loading gear, and — as per independent analysis — apparently creating an oil slick stretching several kilometres into open water. We’ll unpack the strike, the satellite evi...

Silicon Bites Ep264 - Day 1,349 - 2025-11-03 | Washington trims forces in NATO’s front line member state, causing concern in some quarters, and signalling weakness and withdrawal in the face of a revanchist Russia. This broad geopolitical canvas unfolds as Moscow hammers Ukraine’s grid and Kyiv hits back, deep and hard, at Russia’s fuel arteries. Drones stalk a base in Belgian thought to host U.S....

2025-11-03 | Silicon Wafers 047 | DAILY UPDATES | Putin wants everyone to think he’s a tough nut – uncrackable in fact. And the Oreshnik missile system is an extension of his threat and bluster, one might even say symbolic of his authority and virility. But the Oreshnik appears to have been cracked by Ukraine. Let’s explore this! “Oreshnik” (the hazel nut), is one of the Kremlin’s latest so-called...

Phil Ittner is a veteran broadcast journalist now working independently in Ukraine. Currently he's based in Kyiv and produces a weekly interview podcast "On the Edge". Disillusioned with how mainstream media was covering the historic war in Ukraine, Phil decided he had to step in and bring a professional and credible perspective to reporting from Ukraine. ----------LINKS: @PhilipIttn...

2025-11-02 | Silicon Wafers 046 | DAILY UPDATES | Deep strikes: HUR says it hit a military fuel pipeline near Moscow. Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) says it struck the Koltsevoy pipeline — a 400-km ring feeding Russian forces — in the Moscow Oblast on Oct. 31, calling it a disruption to the supply of jet fuel and diesel flow. Local authorities in Zhukovsky cited “automatic equipment shutdow...

Silicon Bites Ep263 - Day 1,348 - 2025-11-02 | Moscow goes dark. Trains stall, pumps stop, traffic snarls — and the Kremlin scrambles for a credible cover story. Let’s unpack what failed, who’s blaming whom, and why it matters for the winter energy war. – the attritional struggle to disrupt and destroy resources and energy logistics that will determine which side eventually prevails in the war. Wh...

2025-11-01 | Silicon Wafers 045 | DAILY UPDATES | His Putin blown his advantage? Through his addition to war, his obsession with the erasure of Ukraine, and the relentless tricks and lying, has he turned Trump against him? Or is this merely a spat between presumptive monarchs? A tussle of tyrants? A clash of unroyal kings? This episode, Tomahawks, deterrence, and whether Putin has misplayed the lo...

Silicon Bites Ep262 - Day 1,346 - 2025-10-31 | Russia’s War Economy Is Eating Itself. The Kremlin’s “military-Keynesian” sugar high is fading. The budget is creaking, sovereign reserves are thin, taxes are going up, and Russia’s elites are grumbling – but are they plotting? Given the risks of being found out, and the unfortunate consequences of that, probably not. As one economist put it: the stat...

Elvira Bary is an author, researcher, and creator working at the intersection of storytelling, self-discovery, and political insight. She also runs an insightful YouTube channel on Russian politics, history, and culture, where she explores how Russia’s history continues to shape the choices that the country makes today. Elvira writes historical fiction and dark fantasy rooted in Russian history an...

2025-10-31 | Silicon Wafers 044 | DAILY UPDATES | Russia flexes with another nuclear systems test days after the last one — as Washington toys with resuming its own. Has Trump called Putin’s bluff by threatening to resume US nuclear tests, after decades of broad global agreement to end them? Moscow hammers Ukraine’s grid again, Poland scrambles jets, and Europe tightens the noose on the Kremlin’s...

Today I’m speaking with Artur Rehi, influential YouTuber, and Estonian reserve soldier. He completed conscription in 2018 in Kuperjanov Infantry battalion in company communications and now delivers aid to Ukraine after every 2 months and generates fundraisers for his viewers on YouTube. He looks at the war with insight, empathy, and humour, and brings his audience the latest updates on the Russo-U...

Livestream with Yuri Rashkin----------Partner on this video: KYIV OF MINE Watch the trailer now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arJUcE1rxY0'Kyiv of Mine' is a documentary series about Ukraine’s beautiful capital, Kyiv. The film production began in 2018, and much has changed since then. It is now 2025, and this story is far from over.https://www.youtube.com/@UCz6UbVKfqutH-N7WXnC5Ykg https:...

Dr Nicholas Wright, MRCP, PhD is a neuroscientist who researches the brain, technology and security at University College London, Georgetown University, and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, where he also advises the Pentagon Joint Staff. Nicholas worked as a neurology doctor in London and Oxford, and has published numerous academic papers, which have been covere...

Ilya Ponomarev is a Russian-Ukrainian politician who was a member of the Russian State Duma from 2007 to 2016. After the 2022 Russian invasion, Ponomarev joined Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces, and categorically denounced the invasion. While a member of the Russian State Duma, he was the only deputy not to vote in favour of the Russian gay propaganda law and to vote against Russia's a...

Glenn Carle is an American writer and former intelligence officer. He is the author of The Interrogator: An Education (2011), which describes his involvement in the interrogation of a man at the time believed to be one of the top members of al-Qa'ida. Johns Hopkins Magazine has found The Interrogator to be "unusually candid in its portrayal of the CIA's internal workings—and the toll...

2025-10-29 | Silicon Wafers 043 | Coup Rumours in Moscow: Cracks in the regime, signalling for purges, or dreamt up for clickbait performance in the fevered imaginations of commentators? Coup rumours swirl again in Moscow. Is it just Telegram fever—and wishful think on the part of the dissident opposition — or is the sanctions shockwave finally prying open rifts among Russia’s elites? We’ll cut th...

GUEST: Vlad Vexler, Social Philosopher, and popular YouTuber. It’s my pleasure today to welcome back onto the channel Vlad Vexler, Social Philosopher, and unique YouTuber. Our previous three video conversations proved to be extremely popular, and a lot has happened since we last spoke. Please do check out Vlad’s channel on YouTube, as it has a collection of the most thought-provoking and insightfu...

2025-10-27 | Silicon Wafers 042 | DAILY UPDATES | Drones over Moscow, in mass, seem to be doing nothing to ease Putin’s natural paranoia as autocrat of Russia, quite the reverse. In this episode we look at the targets of Ukraine’s sanction, Moscow, Ryazan and other nodes within Putin’s military machine. We try to separate lies from truth, propaganda myths and rumours from reality in relation to Po...

2025-10-26 | Silicon Wafers 041 | DAILY UPDATES | The hammer is falling on Putin’s regime, swinging against the oil revenues that support the system and the illegal war. The first cracks are showing in Moscow’s façade, as oil is targeted, and the main buyers China and India blink. Putin says that the sanctions are serious but will not affect his regime. He’s lying and immediately dispatched a Krem...

Livestream with Jonathan MS Pearce - The shocking slaying of Charlie Kirk has huge implications. Politicization and attempts to weaponize of this tragic event are inevitable. ----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buy...

Ben Hodges is a retired United States Army officer, who became commander of United States Army Europe in November 2014, and held that position for three years until retiring from the United States Army in January 2018. Until recently he was the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, specialising in NATO, Transatlantic relationship and international securit...

2025-10-24 | Silicon Wafers 040 | DAILY UPDATES | Is the Kremlin finally feeling real bite from Sanctions? Are oil sanctions by US and UK, and pressure on the shadow tankers, helping the first cracks emerge in Putin’s war economy? Washington, London and Brussels just fired a coordinated broadside at the Kremlin’s cash machine. Russia calls it “unfriendly.” China bristles. India flinches. Europe qu...

Timothy Ash, who has been professional economist for more than 30 years, with two thirds of that in the banking industry. Timothy’s specialism is emerging European economics, and he writes and blogs extensively on economic challenges for leading publications such as the Kyiv Post, Atlantic Council, the Financial Times, and the United Business Journal. He is also an Associate Fellow in the Russia a...

Livestream with Yuri Rashkin and DW Phillips----------Partner on this video: KYIV OF MINE Watch the trailer now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arJUcE1rxY0'Kyiv of Mine' is a documentary series about Ukraine’s beautiful capital, Kyiv. The film production began in 2018, and much has changed since then. It is now 2025, and this story is far from over.https://www.youtube.com/@UCz6UbVKfqutH-N...

Gabrielius Landsbergis is a Lithuanian politician and diplomat who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania from December 2020 until November 2024. He is also a former Member of the European Parliament (2014–2016), where he served on the Committee on International Trade and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Landsbergis was a vocal advocate for...