Activist, researcher and consultant. Cited/mentioned in NYT, Washington Post, USAToday, Kyiv Post, NATO Hybrid COE.
#NAFO
Assistant (to the) Sanctions Manager.
There are other incredibly compelling reasons to be involved in the '24 election right now, like if you're a woman, an immigrant, transgender or gay or you know someone who is, or just any minority period.
This is the one I'm focused on though.
Old joke goes like this: three countries compete to find a fox on a mountain, China, the U.S., and Russia.
China goes first. They send in two divisions of the Red Army who sweep the countryside. Two weeks later, the Chinese announce, hey, we caught the fox!
(1/3)
Russia goes last.
Russia sends in their secret police who go into the woods near the mountain and emerges two hour later with a dog painted red, and they're beating the tar out of it with a stick.
"OK, OK, fine! I'm a fox!" says the dog.
America goes second.
We divert a spy satellite, we find the spider hole the fox is hiding in on thermals, fix its location with a spy plane, then send in Seal Team Six to extract the fox. Two days later, the Pentagon announces, ok guys, we beat China, we caught the fox!
2/3
The Italian says "I will make love to my mistress, and then to my wife, and then wait for the end in peace."
The Russian is quiet, so God says to him, hey, what are you gonna do on your last day on Earth?
The Russian says, 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘣𝘰𝘳'𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦.
Everyone who cares about Ukraine should be up to speed on what Republicans are doing to Ukraine aid at this point.
Columnist
@joshrogin
in the Post gets you there today if you've been out of it for a minute. There's a few points I want to highlight for people.
old joke goes like this:
The world is about to end, so God tells a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Russian.
"Mon dieu!" says the Frenchman. "I must go home and drink champagne, make love to my mistress and wait for the inevitable end."
1/2
to put it bluntly:
1. Russia ran an influence op against America (again)
2. about aid to Ukraine (again)
3. and it worked (again)
It's going to be unpopular, but, this is an extraordinary claim with extraordinary evidence.
1/3
one source: "SOME WEIRD SPY STUFF HAPPENED!"
ok, well, that's inter-
second source: "WEIRD SPY STUFF IN POLAND!"
huh ok if there's a -
third source: "POLAND, WEIRD SPY STUFF"
...OK fine let's look
This is the world of evidenced assessment instead of wild speculation, so it's being undersold; this is big.
I see why Zaid & Grozev were acting cagey.
The Unidentified Health Incidents (UHI) referred to as 'Havana Syndrome' are Russia's "wetworks" unit, GRU Unit 29155.
1/8
Lots of misinfo flying around this morning, let's clear that up.
Make no mistake: this is good news.
But it doesn't mean aid passes certainly or even quickly, and it doesn't mean the fight is over.
Here's what's about to happen next.
🧵
❗️ OK this is news ❗️
POTUS announced a Ukraine aid meeting at the White House with the "Big 4" tomorrow (House & Senate majority/minority leaders), multiple sources confirm.
The best/worst/most likely scenarios for aid are changing, right now.
1/🧵
The hard truth that it seems to me literally no one wants to admit is this:
We're in an information war. We have been since '17.
And we are still losing.
3/3
So people want to hear why I think Mike Johnson and Republican moderates flipped on aid to Ukraine in the past 96 hours? OK, here goes:
Mike Johnson's shift in attitude has to do with religion and political capital calculations, in that order, I think.
Start with background -
@JoohnChoe
All of NAFO would be interested to hear your thoughts on why the Republican "moderates" suddenly flipped and started supporting aid this week. I have my own theory but I'd be interested to see if it lines up with your assessment.
This is probably the best picture of what just happened to Mike Johnson in the past two weeks and it fits what Ukrainian-American activists and NAFO have done into a traceable effect; the discharge petition, it turns out, might have been the most important thing we did.
(🧵)
Here's the basic problem with information war that NAFO addresses - and the reason why we're a big enough threat that someone bothered to go through Kama's old tweets:
Information war targets civilians, but there's no civilian response strategy.
There wasn't, until NAFO.
1/16
oh sweet sweet summer child 😂😂😂
that is not what a kill list looks like
that is a Ukrainian NGO that keeps a list of Russian propagandists and collaborators
you want to see what a kill list looks like?
(🧵)
The way Congress is broken right now is because of Republican lawmakers who repeat Russian narratives about Ukraine.
And the only questionable part about that, where the narratives come from, is established by over a year of OSINT, intel, studies and think tank articles.
2/3
Hi U.S. Rep.
@RoKhanna
!
You said on Mar 31 that you'd consider voting to save Speaker Johnson from a motion to vacate if he puts up Ukraine aid and FSK Bridge repair to a House vote.
Why aren't you also willing to sign the HR 1016 discharge petition?
Dear
@RoKhanna
As you know reputation is base of success. USA promised Ukraine support to defend itself from russian aggression. It is ~3 months in Ukraine asking for help. The world is watching.
This is in your hands 🤝
Please sign discharge petition
#9
🚨 This is a substantial change in the political landscape around Ukraine aid 🚨
I really want people to process this:
If McConnell & Schumer can get 60 votes to pass a clean defense supplemental, a lot of the deadlock we've been in goes away.
But wait, there's more.
For three years, the Biden Administration has projected weakness on the world stage, and it’s emboldened our adversaries.
We must use every tool at our disposal to hold Iran accountable.
This is live from the Senate floor right now at 11:19 PM Pacific Time🤦♀️
This guy is literally arguing cutting military aid to Ukraine helps Ukrainians
I can't make that shit up, that's what he's saying
Here's what happens next, so you don't need to watch this utter trash
(🧵)
Sorry, this needs to be said:
A lot of the anti-Ukraine obsession on the right has nothing to do with Ukraine. It's a revenge fantasy over 2019. They blame Ukraine for Donald Trump's impeachment, and they'll abandon them to a genocidal war of aggression for payback.
Sorry, this needs to be said:
A lot of the anti-Russia obsession on the left has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s a revenge fantasy over 2016. They blame Russia for Donald Trump’s election and they’ll bleed Ukraine dry for payback.
I think it's increasingly probable that there is some intel out there about Russia and Iran acting together and that's why we're getting the damn aid package passed finally
Like, this is NOT a prediction, I have NO secret sources, this is just a guess, but
This is... odd
"
#NAFO
is so rude!" say the nice people.
My brother in information war, what?
I know a NAFO fella who led a raid on TruthSocial that trolled them so hard it made Wired.
I know a fella who created a data-driven deplatforming system that's racked up over 7k "confirmed kills".
Tonight, beefing with
@PartisanGirl
, for a minute, I got an inkling of what it must have been like going up against disinfo outlets before
#NAFO
.
I am some random Asian guy from frickin' Berkeley. And I got, like, global racists & fascists threatening me and insulting me.
1/3
Speaker Johnson signals that Ukraine and Israel aid will only get through the House if there are border policies attached.
“Any funding of the President’s supplemental request should be premised on meaningful policy … at our southern border.”
"Russia Funds Republicans" is not hyperbole. See this guy here?
Jesse Benton took $100k in Russian money to give to Trump. Fun fact, you know how much he actually gave?
$25k. He pocketed SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT of that donation.
So he's going to prison for 18 months now 😂
1/2
it seems like a ton of NAFO members and pro-Ukraine voices in general look at this and the first thing they think is "DUDE THAT HAT IS AWESOME WHERE DO I GET ONE", so
I'm gonna say that backfired
So, it used to be somewhat of a puzzle why Russia funded anti-vaxxer disinfo. They've actually done that for years, before COVID.
It's interesting to revisit the issue now, past-COVID and during Russia's war on Ukraine, and especially in contrast to what China's doing -
Here's what's about to happen to Ukraine aid next.
@SenSchumer
kept the Senate in session and gave, like, a warning order or "WARNO" that roll call votes were possible.
In analysis, that means they're staying in session to get Ukraine aid done.
1/4
This is a side of the war that people tend not to RT much or tweet about:
Wildly illegal, industrial-scale plunder of grain during an international hunger crisis, by Russia.
It's what I'm hunting. One of my hopes for
#NAFO
is to raise awareness of it.
Thread!
1/x
An
@AP
and
@frontlinepbs
investigation tracked more than three dozen ships to reveal a Russian operation to smuggle stolen Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped bolster President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
the sheer number of people who think that NAFO somehow hacked Twitter is a testament to how effectively the shiba inu meme has been hijacked
it's not even a fella and people still think that 😂😂
@briebriejoy
You made a deeply offensive statement about an ongoing atrocity.
Instead of apologizing like an adult, you're cherry-picking the worst criticisms against you as if it's validation of how right you are.
It's hard not to read this as a mixture of sadism and playing the victim.
Yesterday, someone in NAFO posted a picture of codeine pills and a vaguely worded overdose self-harm threat.
I saw that.
Within two hours, by my reckoning, their tweet had been mass-reported, several members were in their DMs, and paramedics were in their home.
I saw that too.
Republicans fuck up so much it's hard to keep track of it all.
They fucked up on abortion so bad they outlawed ectopic pregnancies and IVF, they host Nazis at conferences repeatedly, and they've delayed aid to Ukraine so long it's killing people.
Wait that's not all.
I think some people in NAFO aren't quite sure how to think about their involvement in the aid bill passing.
Let me offer two ways of thinking about that.
One, it's like a dam that broke, think of it that way. And for months, we were part of that pressure on the dam.
1/2
This utterly forgettable-looking cat here, Jesse Benton, getting convicted of funneling Russian money last week is a bigger deal to studies of Russia's hybrid war on America than might be apparent.
What you're looking at is DoJ fighting a war on Russian influence campaigns.
🧵
A few key events happened in the world I'm tracking that it's probably worth recording publicly.
There are two things that can happen with Ukraine aid right now:
1/18
It's mind-boggling how "anti-war" for the tankie set doesn't mean "Russia should stop making war on Ukraine" , it means "Ukraine should stop resisting"
That's not anti-war, that's pro-genocide
Let me try to read in
@UtahDemocrats
and anyone else interested on the
#NAFO
/
@MikeLeeforUtah
thing.
So, Mike Lee picked a fight with a pro-Ukraine anti-disinfo activist group that's been in the
@washingtonpost
and
@nytimes
called the North Atlantic Fella Organization, or NAFO.
Speaker Johnson on Navalny’s death: “In the coming days, as international leaders are meeting in Munich, we must be clear that Putin will be met with united opposition.”
I didn't expect to see that - nature of these things I suppose - but I couldn't be prouder, especially of
@2ug2ug
.
I don't fucking well see vatniks or extremists doing this.
If we make it out of this OK, taking care of each other is going to be how.
Good shit NAFO.
Good shit
"Why would you keep supporting a group that will never accept you as one of their own?" asked a friend of mine the other day about NAFO.
Well, OK, couple reasons, but a big one is, NAFO is a vehicle for activism, not some transactional entity I support for some reward.
(🧵)
NEW: The US has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think.
As Americans consider the costs of continuing to help Ukraine fight the Russians in the coming years, they deserve a careful consideration of the costs of allowing Russia to win. 🧵(1/19)
I will not vote for this 95 billion dollar broken promise.
Americans deserve a secure country, not endless proxy wars fueled by their tax dollars.
41 Senators can kill it.
Stay tuned.
VIDEO: Chinese man who voluntarily signed up to join the Russian army and travel to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians now wants to leave and thinks he’s going to die
I recognize two
@speakerJohnson
faces
One is his resting smug little prat face
The other is his "I just got told what the fuck is up and I don't like it" face
I don't think he realized the degree to which the nation is now seeing the latter 😂😂
It's not that heady rush of being vulnerable, then not, like when you almost-die.
For me, It's seeing someone besides you talk back to the liars and realizing you're not alone.
Recognizing that feeling in myself and others is why I threw so much energy at NAFO this past month.
The key thing people gotta realize about
#ukraine
aid is anti-Ukraine/pro-Russian Republicans will find ANY EXCUSE THEY CAN to delay and eventually kill aid altogether.
Look at the pattern since November: Johnson makes demands, Biden meets them, then he makes more demands
1/2
The kerfuffle over Zelenskyy's choice of attire is kind of... silly.
Sure, it's slightly odd optics.
But this is a leader at war. They undergo regular bombardments aimed at destroying their way of life. He survived multiple assassination attempts.
Wear what you want to.
look,
@mfa_russia
, Navalny supporters, I'll be 100% honest with you:
a lot of us in
#NAFO
had issue with the shark jokes
nothing is unanimous in NAFO but a pretty substantial plurality, myself included, found it over the line
but then you mentioned it
so now this is happening
also, if you aren't following
@P_Kallioniemi
you're kinda missing out on that whole show, tentatively entitled:
"I'm An International Criminal Who Will Somehow Sue This NAFO Dude I Don't Know Over Something He Tweeted"
quality drama going on folks
quality
There are moments that change you.
When I saw Peter Francis Stager beat a DCPD officer with an American flag on the steps of our Capitol two years ago, that was my moment.
I swore to myself, then and there, that I would do something to hold these people accountable.
Remember how bad it looked for Ukraine aid in December or before the Senate bill passed? Or getting signatures for the discharge petition and checking every day how many there were.
Some of you get to say you were there during the darkest days of this and I'm happy for you today
Remember who you are.
Here are some of NAFO's major-outlet media mentions, in one place.
Taylor, Adam, "With NAFO, Ukraine turns the trolls on Russia", Washington Post, Sep 1 2022
Hi I'm Karen Whiteperson, I'm 44, I live in an American state and I'm voting for Bobby Brainworms because I want to free Palpatine and my imaginary ethnic friend said it was OK to
Here's the basic question that Republicans aren't answering:
Why is "border security" a precondition for Ukraine aid passing and not aid to literally ANY other country?
What makes Ukraine special?
Want examples? Here, let me give you examples.
I think this is the "killer" talking point right here, check my logic. It goes:
Republicans just killed Ukrainians and lost Avdiivka
This has just 2 simple premises:
1) something bad just happened in Avdiivka
2) a shortage of weapons that we send to Ukraine contributed
(🧵)
One day this war will be over, Putin and Trump will be dead, and all that'll be left - of all of us - will be history.
When that day comes, if you were in
#NAFO
, you will have shared in something special that people will remember a lot more than the disinfo we oppose.
It looks like Russia spent decades infiltrating the Republican Party and degrading our foreign policy, for the past 8 years with a focus on Ukraine policy, so that one day they could kill children with impunity, and all we'd do is sit on ass and debate the border.
And it worked.
Odesa. The rescue operation at the site of the Russian "Shahed" strike is ongoing. A total of 215 people are on the scene, including rescuers, police, and utility workers. I am grateful to every volunteer who helps.
So far, ten people have been reported killed, including three
Just by the numbers, OK?
@VICENews
nearly 289k people looked at that Tweet.
Only 89 liked it.
Better than 10x the number of "likes" replied to it.
And the vast majority of those replies are withering criticism of it.
You might have to take that public L, Vice.
real talk: at this point, if it actually DID turn out that NAFO was secretly sponsored by the CIA or whatever
i would not even be mad
i'd be like "oh wow good job guys you figured out how to make a meme movement that doesn't suck, now hack Russia again"
People are missing the context here:
The reason the Tennessee Three had a megaphone is that every time they tried to talk about gun legislation after the Nashville shooting, the Republican House speaker silenced them.
Civility is a luxury afforded to the unoppressed.
There are two statements he's really making here, discounting the "border crisis" verbiage for the last minute:
1) Ukraine aid requires a strategy to win he hasn't seen, and
2) the border crisis is why Republicans are blocking aid
Let's look at why both of these are lies.
.
@SpeakerJohnson
after meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky: "I have asked the White House since the day that I was handed the gavel as speaker for clarity. We need clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win. Thus far, their responses have been insufficient."
since Oct on
#Ukraine
aid it's gone like this:
DEMOCRATS: let's aid Ukraine
REPUBLICANS: no, first close the border
DEMOCRATS: fine let's close the border
REPUBLICANS: you didn't close it hard enough - wait, can we just aid Ukraine separately
Do you know how DUMB THIS LOOKS