Lifelong HUMINTer, U.S. Army FAO 🇩🇪 & 🇨🇳, military attaché and Info Warrior. Counter-disinformation. Prof of Intelligence Studies. Politically centrist.
Secure secret location
- Tweets 45,216
- Following 4,240
- Followers 42,607
- Likes 31,091
It has been a challenge for Westerners to comprehend how the Russian people could continue to support Vladimir Putin and his unsuccessful, four-year-long "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine. I examined that exact question from the perspective of Geert Hofstede's Six Dimensions of National Culture.
I am very pleased to report that an article I wrote and presented at the MakeLearn/TIMM conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia in May of this year this subject was just published in their conference proceedings:
Hoffman, F. P. (2026). Russian popular attitudes towards Putin’s war on Ukraine as viewed through the prism of Russian national culture. Proceedings of the Management, Knowledge, and Learning International Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 309-328, lnkd.in/esRQNqsS
5
6
32
2,563
Instead of loudly denouncing Russia for literally being terrorists, the Trump administration wants Osama bin Putin to attend the G-20 summit.
Explain to me how this makes sense.
Russians hit a children’s art center in Kyiv yesterday.
The strike was so loud that I woke up and immediately knew they had hit something. But I couldn’t have imagined it would be an educational institution for children 😔
8
39
154
2,687
Vladimir Putin has now had literally TWICE as long to propagandize and brainwash his population (2000-2026) as Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
This is where it starts -- in grade school (if not earlier).
These are drawings by Russian children in support of Russian terrorists.
Do you realize what kind of children they are raising? The current generation of Russians is far worse than the Nazis, and the next generation will be even worse than the Russians of today.
4
33
111
1,788
Dr. Fred Hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) retweeted
Omg this is such fantastic news for Oleshky 🥹🙏🇺🇦
🚨 BREAKING: Ukraine carried out a massive operation to bring food to starving people in occupied Oleshky.
4,000 kg of food.
100 locations.
Delivered by Ukrainian drones.
I can’t read this without tears.
People in my country were dying from hunger, trapped under occupation - and our defenders found a way to reach them from the sky.
Today, Ukrainian drones carried life🥹
11
32
231
2,572
Dr. Fred Hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) retweeted
Niesamowita homilia księdza Adriana rannego w wyniku ataku nożownika z Ukrainy. Wspaniały człowiek i wzór dla nas wszystkich. Tu dwa fragmenty z jego słów:
„Chciałbym też was prosić, abyście nie winili narodu, z którego jest oprawca. [...] Zła dokonała konkretna osoba, która odpowiada za swoje czyny.
Dlatego proszę was, abyście nie odpowiadali złem za zło, abyście odpowiadali miłością, wsparciem i zrozumieniem. [...] Proszę was, abyście się wzajemnie szanowali i wspierali”.
475
1,663
14,016
649,703
Dr. Fred Hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) retweeted
Since 2015, the UN has passed 188 resolutions condemning Israel.
That's more than twice as many as against the rest of the world combined—Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela included.
Yet diplomats sat politely through a speech from Iran, a regime that has killed thousands of its own citizens and still persecutes them.
It's not about human rights. It's blatant anti-Israel bias.
"If there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now."
⠀
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York with a sharp rebuke as delegates walk out of the hall in protest of his speech.
2,209
3,280
16,099
405,038
Mexican drug cartels are absolutely flush with cash, enabling them to hire IT talent and equip themselves with the latest and greatest in technology.
They build semi-submersible watercraft and submarines to smuggle narcotics into the U.S. If three out of four sink or are caught, the one that gets through makes the whole effort phenomenally profitable.
ISIS and Hamas have already used drones for years. We would be foolish to think that narcotraffickers don't also do so.
NEW: Drug cartels are rapidly advancing their drone capabilities — and U.S. officials are now concerned they could be learning from the battlefield.
There are reports cartel affiliates are being sent to the Russia-Ukraine war to gain battlefield experience — potentially bringing those skills back to Mexico.
A @StateDept spokesperson saying, “The Department of State takes seriously reports of transnational criminal organizations’ growing use of drone technology and tracks the issue closely… The Department of State engages U.S. law enforcement and Ukrainian counterparts to adopt measures to mitigate the risk of battlefield skills transfer and apply lessons from Ukrainian counter-UAS experience to counter the cartel drone threat.”
In a statement, @CBP telling @NewsNation, “In fiscal year 2025, CBP detected over 42,000 near-border, unmanned drone flights. This fiscal year, detections have exceeded that number… Cartels use drones to conduct surveillance on U.S. law enforcement, to move illegal narcotics across the border into the United States, and to guide illegal aliens across the border. Inside Mexico, cartels use weaponized drones against rival cartels, law enforcement, and military personnel to evade arrest and capture. They continue to advance their drone technology and tactics, to conceal their movements and operations. President Trump’s executive orders and overall focus on cartels and air dominance has empowered CBP to combat and mitigate cartels’ use of drones. Additional technology resources have benefited border security operations. CBP continues to deploy multi-sensor capabilities on the border to increase detection and mitigation effectiveness.”
H/t @Jackie_Koppell
1
4
28
2,143
Gee, I wonder who could have damaged Latvian border surveillance equipment? Let me reflect on this for a nanosecond...
🇷🇺 🐨 🇷🇺
🇱🇻 Latvia’s State Border Guard says newly installed surveillance infrastructure along the country’s eastern border has been deliberately sabotaged.
Cables have been cut, distribution cabinets damaged and surveillance equipment targeted in what Border Guard chief Guntis Pujāts describes as “not random vandalism” but targeted action intended to disrupt border monitoring and delay deployment.
Latvian authorities describe the wider activity along the Russian and Belarusian borders as aggressor-state-supported provocations.
No individual perpetrators have publicly been identified.
7
37
243
3,149
Vladimir Putin's Russia is a terrorist state. Say it with me, folks.
So why does President Trump want him at the G-20 summit? That makes NO sense at all.
None.
15
55
289
3,776
Nobody knows better than the Georgians when it comes to Russian annexation; 20% of Georgia remains under Russian control since 2008.
In Georgia we have a word for what Russia is doing to NATO's edge this week: borderisation.
Since 2008, Russian soldiers have come at night to the villages along the South Ossetian line and moved the fence a few hundred metres. A farmer goes to sleep in Georgia and wakes up on the "other side," his orchard now in a "state" nobody but Moscow recognises. No invasion. No headlines. Just a fence that is never where it was last year.
Drones over Moldova, Romania and Poland are the same fence, moved through the air. Nobody declares war on a fence. That's the point.
28
74
1,761
Dr. Fred Hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) retweeted
Korea was one people until 1945. Today the men of the South stand up to three inches taller than the men of the North.
Same ancestry, same language, the same height at the start. The border is 160 miles long and 2.5 miles wide.
In the North, food comes through the state ration. Rice when there is rice, maize when there is not, and meat on a few holidays a year. In 2012 the army cut its minimum height for a recruit to 4ft 8in, because too few 17 year olds could reach the old one.
In the South, meat consumption rose about tenfold in 50 years. Beef, pork, eggs and milk went from luxuries to every day.
South Korean women gained 8 inches in height over the 20th century. It is the largest increase recorded for any population on earth.
Children who escape from the North are visibly smaller than Southern children of the same age. Fed in the South, the young ones catch up. The older ones are too late.
Nobody designed the experiment. But it has 75 million subjects, a genetic control and a hard border, and it has run for 80 years.
One side of the wire was fed grain by a government, and the other side ate meat.
285
3,298
15,827
676,976
Radoslaw Sikorski (@sikorskiradek) is spot on, as usual.
Poland’s @sikorskiradek says like it is:
“Sergey, tell your boss: enough is enough! You can stop this colonial war of choice at any time. You still can kill a lot of people but you can’t win. Stop destroying Russia’s future!”
24
137
3,384
I agree that returning troops to Lithuania sends a clear signal to the Kremlin.
However, just so we're clear: Deploying a reinforced battalion is simply meant to provide a tripwire: Having them based there simply means that if Russia is foolish enough to launch a conventional invasion, American troops will be there to fight (and, in some cases, unfortunately die).
However, one reinforced Army battalion is not a large enough force to prevent a significant Russian invasion from succeeding in seizing Lithuania.
I also applaud the return of US troops to Lithuania. This creates deterrence & assures our Baltic allies that we have their backs. I’ve never met people who cherish freedom & who love America more than our Baltic allies. They know what it is like to live under Russian domination.
8
1
47
3,244
Dr. Fred Hoffman, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) retweeted
“... our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors, and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America"
washingtontimes.com/news/202…
64
24
114
3,994
Sean Wiswesser's (@Wiswesser) excellent book on Russian intelligence tradecraft, tactics, and dirty tricks is a worthwhile (and very timely) read.
The book is also now available as an audio book, so if you've got some long drives (or flights) ahead of you, I strongly encourage you to listen in.
🔥 KOMPROMAT. SEXPIONAGE. COERCION. “STICKS & BRICKS.” Not Cold War relics. They remain part of the Russian intelligence toolkit.
Want to understand them better!
A short clip from my interview with The Sun 🇬🇧 earlier this summer on the tradecraft behind Russian espionage—and the world explored in my book: Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks.
🎧 The audiobook is out now—and hit #1 for al new Intelligence/Espionage audio releases.
📚 Listen or read…👇👇
Thank you for the support!
#RussianIntelligence #Espionage #Russia #Intelligence
1
7
1,199