Silicon Curtain

Edition No167 | 24-06-2025 - Russia has sustained staggering troop losses in Ukraine. Can the regime admit to itself, let alone its people that this has been a tremendous waste for a senseless purpose, and in exchange for trivial gains? Has Russia inadvertently just admitted to the scale of its losses? The staggering troop losses incurred by Moscow's armed forced during the full-scale invasion...

Edition No166 | 23-06-2025 - This is a horrific story, which stands out eve amongst the slew of horrific stories we churn through each day. Apparently, a Russia soldier, now killed, has been accused of eating a comrade. It is emblematic of the brutality of Russia’s war, but perhaps also symbolic of how the country is both destroying its neighbour, and consuming itself, through rage, aggression, gr...

Anna Danylchuk has been creating a war diary since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. Anna Danylchuk aims to tell the truth about Ukraine and Russia’s war and cut through the noise and propaganda. Anna is passionate about the beauty and independence of her country, and communicates this powerfully in her videos, in a clear and honest way.----------LINKS: @Annaf...

Edition No165 | 22-06-2025 - TACO no more? Trump has taken decisive action. Was it from a strategic assessment of the risk posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or was he manipulated into it by a forceful Netanyahu, exuding macho aggression and decisiveness? Was Trump perhaps driven to action by a sense of inevitability, once the bombers and refuelling aircraft were in position, it would have seemed...

Edition No164 | 21-06-2025 - Next up, is the world about to open the Pandora’s Box of Assassination Escalation? There has been extensive discussion this week of whether it’s going too far to remove a leader from the stage to end a war. In this case, the focus is on Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. Before we dive into this topic, we should indulge in some philoso...

Caolan Robertson is a journalist, film maker, political writer and social commentator. He is a director at Byline TV and now lives in "beautiful Ukraine".https://www.youtube.com/@CaolanReports ----------Directed by Caolan Robertson, The Eastern Front is the first major Western documentary to focus on the harrowing reality of the war in Ukraine.https://byline.tv/putindocumentary/https://w...

Livestream with Greg Terry - Covering Middle East and Ukraine.----------Car for Ukraine has once again joined forces with a group of influencers, creators, and news observers during this summer. Sunshine here serves as a metaphor, the trucks are a sunshine for our warriors to bring them to where they need to be and out from the place they don't.https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-sil...

Ostap Kryvdyk is Royal College of Defence Studies member, MA (King’s College London) and Chair, Ukrainian Strategic Initiative think tank, Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ukraine. ----------LINKS:https://x.com/ostapkryvdykhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kryvdyk/https://cepa.org/author/ostap-kryvdyk/https://fpc.org.uk/three-years-on-what-peace-should-be/https://cepa.org/article/the-dangers-of-chicken-kyiv-thinkin...

Theo Allthorpe-Mullis an NCTJ qualified journalist and author of the the Dictators v. Democrats SubStack. Prior to becoming a journalist he was a police officer in London. He is interested in conflict, human rights and the preservation of democracy. Prior to his service with the Police, he undertook a Masters Degree in International Security.----------LINKS:https://tamullis.substack.com/https://ww...

Edition No163 | 19-06-2025 - Iran and Israel launch more attacks, and sources suggest Trump is weighing the final decision about US involvement. Earlier, Trump said "I may do it, I may not do it." Classic ambiguity and chaotic political theater from Trump, but he has a real dilemma here, and advisors within MAGA are split on the approach. Go the slogan of ‘no more wars’ or pursue an aggressive Mid...

Dr. Greg Mills directs the Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg, working to boost Africa’s economic growth. He has spearheaded reform initiatives with governments in Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi, and South Africa, while also advancing peace building and investment efforts in Colombia and throughout Africa. Before joining Brenthurst, he served as National Director of the South African Institute of I...

Livestream with Jonathan MS Pearce - Covering Middle East and Ukraine.----------Car for Ukraine has once again joined forces with a group of influencers, creators, and news observers during this summer. Sunshine here serves as a metaphor, the trucks are a sunshine for our warriors to bring them to where they need to be and out from the place they don't.https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-suns...

Edition No162 | 18-06-2025 - Russia is not just a malignant adversary of the West, an aggressive actor on the world stage, full of animosity and venom. We are not just dealing with a state that has delusions of imperial and even superpower grandeur. We are dealing with a country that collectively acts in a stupid manner, frequently against its own national interests. Russia has been described as a...

Edition No161 | 17-06-2025 - Trump has fled the G7, where it seems like his only significant contribution was to whine about how unfair it was that his fiend Vald has been kicked out of the club. He then repeated a total fantasy story, about how it was Justin Trudeau’s fault Russia was kicked out and that Putin would never have gone to war if 1) he had been president and 2) Trudeau and pals had no...

Edition No160 | 16-06-2025 - Is the regime in Iran on the brink of collapse, as Israel continues to target strategic military and regime objects in Iran? Regime change is more openly being talked about as the key objective of the Israeli strikes, but have they bitten off more than they can chew? Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister has urged ordinary Iranians to seize the moment and overthrow Kha...

Rear Admiral (ret.) Michael Hewitt is a native of Norfolk, Virginia, son of a career naval aviator. Michael holds a master’s degree from the National Defence University. Hewitt served as deputy director for Global Operations, Operations Directorate, Joint Staff, the Pentagon, Washington D.C. He was responsible to the director for Operations and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for oversig...

Daryna Shevchenko is CEO of The Kyiv Independent newspaper. She worked for the Kyiv Post, an English language newspaper until 2017. Following the invasion of Ukraine the Kyiv Independent attracted two million followers and achieved tremendous success in crowdfunding to support its operations and expansion. When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Shevchenko remained in Kyiv for ten days. S...

David DeBatto is host of the ‘No Delusion Zone’ podcast @NoDelusionZone He 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 l...

Edition No159 | 13-06-2025 - Summary- Friday 13th superstitions – unlucky for some, auspicious for others? - Wide-scale attack to ‘decapitate serpent’- Partial evacuations were a signal of impending strike - Was US talk of deal with Iran a smokescreen, or genuine? - Oil price spike in reaction – long term? - Diversion of air defense missile component to Iran- Iran distracted from supporting Russia...

Edition No158 | 12-06-2025 - Russia’s war against Ukraine has achieved not only a horrifying milestone, but an extraordinary conjunction of symbolic dates and numbers. On the Russian National Day public holiday, the grim figure of one million Russians lost in Putin’s senseless war has been reached. We’ll get into the casualty numbers, and their potential implications in a minute. First though, we...

Nataliya Gumenyuk (Наталія Петрівна Гуменюк) is a prominent Ukrainian journalist, specialised in foreign affairs and conflict reporting. She is a co-founder and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, and a co-founder of the independent media Hromadske. Nataliya is Lead Journalist at The Reckoning Project. She is the author of several documentaries and books, including The Lost Island: Tales fr...

Denver Lee Riggleman III is an American businessman and former politician from Virginia who served as the United States representative for Virginia's 5th congressional district from 2019 to 2021. Riggleman is the only member of the Republican party to speak on the House of Representatives floor against QAnon "Condemning QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes". Since...

Welcome to our monthly conversation with Konstantin, who is one of the most respected voices on YouTube about what is happening Inside Russia. Konstantin Samoilov is a well-known YouTuber whose channel ‘Inside Russia’ comments insightfully on Russia’s decent into authoritarianism over the last few years. But now, like many others, he’s outside Russia, with no idea of when he can return there. ----...

The Kremlin has been using freelancers to carry out dirty deeds across Europe with increasing frequency — and those freelancers can be anyone. The strategy is as sinister as it is effective. It’s also a law enforcement nightmare. But do our governments have the will to tackle the issue, and the leadership qualities that will be required to fully mobilise resources, and be frank with electorates? -...

Edition No157 | 10-06-2025 - Putin has ordered and executed one of the largest attacks on Ukraine's capital since the full-scale war began. Why? Because he can. Kyiv and Odesa came under massive bombardment in the early hours of June 10. Explosions were heard across the capital as air defence systems were activated, engaging targets that included ballistic missiles and drones. The full toll is not...