Silicon Curtain

Adam P. Dixon has extensive experience in Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union as a consultant, businessman and entrepreneur, working mostly in aviation and telecommunications. He is currently working on a range of innovative military technologies, including a platform for the removal of landmines. Mr. Dixon studied at Harvard, Oxford, and Leningrad State University.----------LINKS:https://n...

2025-11-10 | Silicon Wafers 052 | DAILY UPDATES | Russia hurls one of the biggest mixed salvos of the war at Ukraine’s power system; Kyiv is hit by emergency blackouts; Ukraine says Russia hit substations that feed nuclear plants; and Moscow pushes a fresh Zaporizhzhia “nuclear plot” narrative. We’ll separate facts from threats, fearmongering from the terrifying reality. The strike: one of the lar...

Silicon Bites Ep268 | News Update - Day 1,356 - 2025-11-10 | ----------SOURCES: Monetary policy & macro* Bank of Russia key rate cut to 16.5% (Oct 24, 2025), official release. (Central Bank of Russia)* Reuters explainer on the cut and inflation backdrop. (Reuters)* Manufacturing PMI contraction (Aug 1, 2025). (Reuters)Budget, debt, NWF* Debt-service share and 2026 increase. (Reuters)* Siluanov...

Joe Lindsley is a traveller and a writer, and American reporting on Chicago's WGN Radio from Ukraine each and every weekday of Russia's full-scale war. He once was protégé to Fox News founder Roger Ailes, but Lindsley escaped that frenzied world where power mattered more than truth. He came to Lviv for a Ukrainian Catholic University journalism conference on Information Overload, AI, and R...

2025-11-09 | Silicon Wafers 051 | DAILY UPDATES | Despite the profusion of stories we’ve covered, the battle for Pokrovsk, energy sanctions, and so on, the most important strategic angle on the war this winter is the attritional energy war. And it’s unlike the Western attitude to the war throughout all these four years – to cede the escalation dominance to Russia, always pulling punches, in suppor...

Dr. Douglas J. Davis, MD, PhD is MCW Office of Global Health Liaison, Department of Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin----------Ukraine’s Winter War Is the World’s Test — and America Can’t Afford to BlinkOPINION — Two weeks ago, my colleagues and I stood in Dnipro while warning sirens cut across the city and Shahed drones screamed overhead. We had come as a medical-humanitarian delegation to...

Silicon Bites Ep267 | News Update - Day 1,354 - 2025-11-08 | AI fakes try to poison Ukraine’s mobilization debate; Washington grants Budapest a carve-out on Russian energy; Kyiv’s defence industry talks up its potential with $30–35 billion in long-range output for 2026; the EU tightens visa screws on Russian nationals; Pokrovsk hangs in the balance; mysterious drones snarl Belgian airspace; and Ge...

2025-11-07 | Silicon Wafers 050 | Is Sergei Lavrov on the way out? After that embarrassment of the non-summit in Budapest, and the cold treatment of Kirill Dmitriev in Washington, it looks like Lavrov is falling out of favour with the Kremlin. But will he also be falling out with those square shaped and glazed objects, designed to let light into tall buildings? Budapest blows up, G20 gets awkward...

Silicon Bites Ep266 - Day 1,353 - 2025-11-07 | Civil War is Kremlin’s #1 Fear, according to the Kremlin’s own chief sociologist. If I was asked this question, I’d have said it’s a low probability, as is the fragmentation of Russia into myriad smaller states. Not impossible, but very unlikely, even after the conclusion of Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. On this channel, we have speculated extens...

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:...

Steven Moore is a political strategist, who spent seven years as a chief of staff and senior leadership aide in the United States Congress, developing relationships with senior policymakers across the United States and around the world. He worked on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives mostly as chief of staff for former Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), the former chief deputy GOP whip. In that...

2025-11-05 | Silicon Wafers 049 | DAILY UPDATES | Pokrovsk, the contested Donetsk rail-and-road hub has become the most consequential urban fight since Avdiivka, and the outcome of that fight may turn out to be instrumental for the outcome of the war, not only against Ukraine, but Russia’s war against Western democracy. In today’s episode, we are zooming in on the battle for Pokrovsk. We’ll explai...

David DeBatto is host of the ‘No Delusion Zone’ podcast @NoDelusionZone is a retired U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, a geopolitical analyst, writer, and podcaster. David is an Iraq war veteran who served as Team Leader of a Tactical Human Intelligence Team (THT) in operations within Iraq and is also a former police officer. David is considered too conservative for the progressive left...

Silicon Bites Ep265 - Day 1,351 - 2025-11-05 | Donetsk, the contested Donetsk rail-and-road hub has become the most consequential urban fight since Avdiivka, and the outcome of that fight may turn out to be instrumental for the outcome of the war, not only against Ukraine, but Russia’s war against Western democracy. In today’s episode, we are zooming in on the battle for Pokrovsk. We’ll explain wh...

Noel Tock has been in Ukraine since 2023, part-time running frontline evacuations. He has founded and participated in several charities to support Ukraine, and to pioneer work on the ground that is transparent in funding sources and effective in action. He is Director of Strategy at KLYN Drones and Dog Help Kharkiv and Co-Founder - Volara Foundation. ----------Director of Strategy – KLYN DronesNon...

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...