harlekin.me

Wee­kly Signi­fi­cant Acti­vi­ty Report - Sep­tem­ber 27, 2025

[…]

The Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry needs to make a bre­akthrough in Ukraine’s defen­si­ve lines in Donetsk in order to gain a defi­ni­ti­ve upper hand on the battle­field and in nego­tia­ti­ons to end the war on the mini­mum terms accep­ta­ble to Moscow. To do that the Krem­lin is put­ting all its chips on the table to irrever­si­b­ly alter the battle­field situation.

Sus­tai­ned Wes­tern sup­port for Ukrai­ne at this cri­ti­cal junc­tu­re could pro­ve decisi­ve in pre­ven­ting Rus­si­an mili­ta­ry suc­cess. Even indi­rect signals of Trump admi­nis­tra­ti­on backing for Ukrai­ne and Euro­pe com­pli­ca­te Moscow’s cal­cu­lus and rai­se the sta­kes for achie­ving a war-altering bre­akthrough. The win­dow to make such a bre­akthrough appears to be nar­ro­wing as a gro­wing num­ber of indi­ca­tors sug­gest that Russia’s defen­se indus­tri­al capa­ci­ty has pas­sed its peak.

src: click (OPFOR)

EU repa­ra­ti­on loan for Ukrai­ne ‘will never hap­pen’, says Belgium

“Taking Putin’s money and lea­ving the risks with [Bel­gi­um]. That’s not going to hap­pen,” Bel­gi­an Prime Minis­ter Bart De Wever said in New York. Most of the assets are held in Euro­clear, a Brussels-based clea­ring house – making Bel­gi­um a key play­er in EU negotiations

src: click

The cor­re­spon­ding red­dit arti­cle on /r/geopolitics has the usu­al red­dit com­ment sec­tion, btw -

no com­ment visi­ble - every sin­gle one of them down­vo­ted out of exi­s­tance. 🙂 Gen-Z pro­tec­ting them­sel­ves from opinions.

Man, tho­se tur­kish opi­ni­on wri­ters get bet­ter and bet­ter, the­se days…

https://harici.com.tr/en/polands-fanning-the-flames-intensifies-turbulence-and-unease-in-central-and-eastern-europe/

Wer­te­wes­ten­up­date:

src: click (FT)

Don’t you worry Mr. Washing­ton, our UvdL is on it with prio­ri­ty just as your boss dema-

Oh and could Frie­de Merz blow you 140 Bil­li­on up your ass­ho­le, while you’­re with us in one room?

Ich weiß gar­nicht war­um die extre­me Rech­te in Deutsch­land so einen Auf­schwung erlebt. 

Wir in Öster­reich haben für sol­che Belan­ge unter Freun­den des Atlan­tik ja den guten Oth­mar (Alp­bach Vor­stand Oth­mar Karas), der ihnen per­sön­lich jetzt sehr ger­ne erklä­ren wird, wie Lob­by­ing zu funk­tio­nie­ren habe:

Damit es am Ende eine “gesell­schaft­li­che Errun­gen­schaft und ast­rei­ne Hilfs­funk­ti­on der Poli­tik” darstellt.

Gut, der Bibi erklärt das die­se Woche sei­nen Social Media Influ­en­cern auf ner Event­ver­an­stal­tung in den USA auch, aber das Video ver­linkt ich hier mal lie­ber nicht - ich bin ja nicht lebensmüde.

edit: Even TRT just airs the first third of the video.. 🙂 Without the actu­al ans­wer by Bibi. You know - journalism. 🙂

At the same time, Puz­der prai­sed the com­mis­si­on and its pre­si­dent Ursu­la von der Ley­en for agre­eing a broad tra­de deal with Trump in July that aver­ted a trans­at­lan­tic tra­de war. The agree­ment was pro­of of how both could bene­fit if they worked tog­e­ther to find solu­ti­on, he said.

Und was war das auch für ein wun­der­schö­ner Deal, der Stan­dard hat mich für mei­ne Ana­ly­se dazu sogar aus sei­nem Forum ver­ban­nen müssen.

Ver­fah­ren bei der RTR läuft noch.

Schließ­lich hat­te da ja wie­der wer den Mund auf­ge­macht, der es nicht sollte…

https://exxpress.at/politik/demuetigung-fuer-europa-es-war-keine-verhandlung-trump-schrieb-zoelle-vor/

Ori­gi­nal source: click (SZ) | Non pay­wal­led: click

Und? Haben sie ihr Kind nächs­tes Jahr schon für Alp­bach angemeldet?

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/fall-jeffrey-epstein-elon-musk-wies-einladung-von-epstein-angeblich-zurueck-a-915b119c-a05c-47c0-8d06-03f23edbc001

https://www.diepresse.com/20144163/elon-musks-name-in-den-epstein-akten

Ich glau­be die Pres­se (Die Pres­se) braucht wie­der ganz drin­gend mehr öster­rei­chi­sche Qua­li­täts­jour­na­lis­ten Förderung!

Gut, wozu braucht es Bele­ge wie Flight­logs oder gar Aus­sa­gen um einen Namen durch den Dreck zu zie­hen… Ich wer­de das nie ver­ste­hen. Also mir als öster­rei­chi­schem Qua­li­täts­jour­na­list reicht ein Kalen­der­ein­trag mit “Kommt er jetzt?” dane­ben ja voll­kom­men aus um jeman­den als… Ohne dass ich sei­ne öffent­li­che Recht­fer­ti­gung auch nur erwähne.

Das hab ich auf der Jour­na­lis­ten­schu­le so gelernt.

Weil der hat eh Twit­ter um zu reagie­ren. Wie­so muss ich mir als Jour­na­list da die Arbeit machen, …

Ich mein bei nem Kinderf-

you know -

But Putin can never win, becau­se - demo­cra­cy. (Part­ly in Star Wars - but thats his cho­sen sto­ry for stu­dents - I have not­hing to do with it.)

attai­ned only -

Sin­ce Jan. 1, 2025, average Rus­si­an mon­th­ly gains have been 169 squa­re miles. In the past four weeks (Aug. 26–Sept. 23, 2025), Rus­si­an for­ces gai­ned 206 squa­re miles of Ukrai­ni­an ter­ri­to­ry, a 14% incre­a­se from the 180 squa­re miles the­se for­ces gai­ned during the pre­vious four-week peri­od (July 29–Aug. 26, 2025).

src: click

- this mon­th, accord­ing to the Bel­fer Cen­ter report card - which I had to look at for a flip­ping ten minu­tes, until I glea­ned, that the ISW fucked the deepstatemap.live nar­ra­ti­ve around Pokrovsk royally.

src: click

So lets take a look at the num­bers in squa­re kilometers:

Average mon­th­ly rus­si­an gain in 2025: 437,7 km²
Average mon­th­ly rus­si­an gain in 2024: 4168/12 = 347.3 km²

Last mon­ths average mon­th­ly gain: 466,2 km² (July 29–Aug. 26, 2025)
This mon­ths average mont­ly gain: 533,5 km² (Aug. 26–Sept. 23, 2025)

Mind you - this is during the cur­rent “ukrai­ni­an coun­ter offensive”.

So natu­ral­ly - the Ukrai­ne just brought Yuval Noah Hara­ri to exp­lain to you that this is obvious­ly less than 1% of Ukrai­ne, so…

Con­tra­ry to the nar­ra­ti­ve pushed by Rus­si­an pro­pa­gan­da, Ukrai­ne has so far been win­ning the war. Even US Pre­si­dent Donald Trump, who in Febru­a­ry 2025 lec­tu­red Ukrai­ni­an Pre­si­dent Volo­dym­yr Zelen­skyy that he must cave in to Rus­si­an deman­ds becau­se “you don’t have the cards”, has this week decla­red that “Ukrai­ne, with the sup­port of the Euro­pean Uni­on, is in a posi­ti­on to fight and WIN”. 

src: click

Ukrai­ne just as win­ning by losing more ter­ri­to­ry on average than this time last year. During its fab­led offensive.

Oh - and this is what the ISW usual­ly extra­po­la­tes, if the right per­son asks:

In the past week, Sept. 16–23, 2025, Rus­sia has gai­ned 28 squa­re miles of Ukraine’s ter­ri­to­ry, down from the pre­vious week’s gain of 91 squa­re miles, which con­sti­tu­tes a decre­a­se of 69%.

edit: Spiel­ver­der­ber…

Also important to know (new Rand report):

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-ceasefire-2674007545/

Das GPS-Dilemma – wie eine Ente die Des­in­for­ma­ti­on unterstützt

[…]

Die sonst seriö­se Finan­cial Times berich­te­te am Mon­tag (FT-Link) unter Beru­fung auf bul­ga­ri­sche Behör­den, dass beim Anflug von Kom­mis­si­ons­prä­si­den­tin von der Ley­en auf Plov­div das GPS-Signal gestört wor­den sei. Sie habe des­halb eine Stun­de in der Luft krei­sen müs­sen, und die Pilo­ten hät­ten den Anflug mit Papier­kar­ten durch­füh­ren müssen.

Drei Tage spä­ter stell­te die bul­ga­ri­sche Behör­de klar, dass nichts davon zutraf. In der Zwi­schen­zeit war die Auf­re­gung groß. Gerüch­te ver­brei­te­ten sich rasant und in sozia­len Medi­en wuch­sen die Rei­hen der angeb­li­chen Flug­ex­per­ten ins Unendliche.

Die­se Falsch­mel­dung lie­fer­te den Freun­den Russ­lands und den Ver­tei­di­gern Putins reich­lich Munition.

src: click

Meint INVED.eu das da hier?

Flip-flopping accu­sa­ti­ons. Alle­ga­ti­ons that Rus­sia inter­fe­red with the GPS on a pla­ne on Sunday car­ry­ing Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on Pre­si­dent Ursu­la von der Ley­en beca­me fur­ther mudd­led on Thurs­day, when Bul­ga­ria appeared to back­track on its initi­al accusations—only to rever­se cour­se a few hours later.

src: click (FP)

Das Pro­blem war nicht eine “Zei­tungs­en­te”, das Pro­blem waren lügen­de Spre­cher der bul­ga­ri­schen Luft­fahrts­be­hör­de - und der bul­ga­ri­schen Regie­rung, und von denen gleich drei Stück, in zwei sepa­ra­ten Anfra­gen der FT - gut, das darf man natür­lich nicht wis­sen wenn man heut­zu­ta­ge von der Euro­päi­schen Uni­on bezahlt wird…

[…] wäh­rend der Rest­be­trieb pro­blem­los wei­ter­lief, nie­mand ande­res eine Stö­rung gese­hen oder repor­tet hat (das wär in den Daten), die bul­ga­ri­sche Air Traf­fic Aut­ho­ri­ty aber von einer Stö­rung des gesam­ten Flug­be­triebs gespro­chen hat - und “des war wie immer wenn der Rus­se GPS jammt” raus­ge­ge­ben hat. Was man aber nicht in einem NIC Wert in dem Zeit­fens­ter gese­hen hat. Von allen Flug­zeu­gen die dort rum­stan­den, gekreist sind, gelan­det sind, gestar­tet sind.

https://www.ft.com/content/3c330f87-71c4-4db9-8259-f5c132c1f0d3

die einen “Offi­zi­el­len” zitiert haben:

A jet car­ry­ing von der Ley­en to Plov­div on Sunday after­noon was depri­ved of elec­tro­nic navi­ga­tio­nal aids while on approach to the city’s air­port, in what three offi­cials brie­fed on the inci­dent said was being trea­ted as a Rus­si­an inter­fe­rence operation.

“The who­le air­port area GPS went dark,” said one of the offi­cials. After cir­cling the air­port for an hour, the plane’s pilot took the decisi­on to land the pla­ne manu­al­ly using ana­lo­gue maps, they added. “It was unde­nia­ble interference.”

Zwei ande­re haben ihm nicht widersprochen?

Go take a hike…

Die bul­ga­ri­schen Air Traf­fic Ser­vice Agents haben mitgelogen:

The Bul­ga­ri­an Air Traf­fic Ser­vices Aut­ho­ri­ty con­fir­med the inci­dent in a state­ment to the Finan­cial Times.

“Sin­ce Febru­a­ry 2022, the­re has been a nota­ble incre­a­se in [GPS] jamming and recent­ly spoo­fing occur­ren­ces,” it said. “The­se inter­fe­ren­ces dis­rupt the accu­ra­te recep­ti­on of [GPS] signals, lea­ding to various ope­ra­tio­nal chal­len­ges for air­craft and ground systems.”

Fuck you.

Das Demen­ti drei Tage spä­ter geht nicht auf die Grün­de für die Falsch­mel­dung von offi­zi­el­ler Sei­te ein, bestä­tigt aber dass es die bul­ga­ri­sche Regie­rung war die hier eine Mel­dung zurück­ge­zo­gen hat (= kei­ne Ente):

Hust Hust Keuch Hust

Na sehr gut, damit haben wir ja den öster­rei­chi­schen Reframing-/Zensurverein gepinpointet.

Die öster­rei­chi­schen Behör­den haben auch bereits wie­der gan­ze Arbeit geleistet…

Ver­eins­re­gis­ter­aus­zug:

Fami­li­en­na­me: Shane Donald
Vor­na­me: Rutledge

Jo - eh.

Unter der Adres­se des Ver­eins (Hai­zin­ger­gas­se 50/3/14) ist eine PR Fir­ma ein­ge­tra­gen (edit: Laut Rück­ruf - Coa­ching Bude, kei­ne PR Agency):

Eben­falls unter der Betei­li­gung des Mag. Johan­nes Thun-Hohenstein -- ich mein das ist die­ses ganz nor­ma­le Fir­men­kon­strukt, das ein Han­nes Rau­scher natür­lich wie­der im Stan­dard als “Informor­ma­ti­ons­wäch­ter gegen Des­in­for­ma­ti­on in Öster­reich” bewirbt.

Wenn man ihm nur genü­gend Lachs­bröt­chen spendiert.

Unter der Tele­fon­num­mer geht zu nor­ma­len Geschäfts­zei­ten nur das Band von Mag. Johan­nes Thun-Hohenstein ran.

Gut, klei­nes Unter­neh­men (PR-Agentur und EU-Desinformationswächter!), lan­ges Frühstück, …

The wri­ter is chan­cellor of Germany

Vla­di­mir Putin con­ti­nues his bru­tal war of con­quest against Ukrai­ne with unrelen­ting fero­ci­ty. Every resi­den­ti­al block des­troy­ed in Ode­sa, every night-time strike on a hos­pi­tal in Khar­kiv or on a government buil­ding in Kyiv dis­pro­ves the myth that Rus­sia is wil­ling to make peace. Euro­pe must draw the necessa­ry con­clu­si­ons from this, ide­al­ly tog­e­ther with its part­ners on both sides of the Atlan­tic. We must sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly and mas­si­ve­ly rai­se the cos­ts of Russia’s aggression.

We do this not to pro­long the war, but to end it. Moscow will only come to the table to dis­cuss a cease­fire when it rea­li­ses that Ukrai­ne has grea­ter stay­ing power. We have that stay­ing power. Euro­pe is more tes­ted now than perhaps at any time in our life­ti­mes. Ger­ma­ny must — and will — assu­me a par­ti­cu­lar share of responsibility.

We need a new impe­tus to chan­ge Russia’s cal­cu­la­ti­ons. Now is the moment to app­ly an effec­ti­ve lever that will dis­rupt the Rus­si­an president’s cyni­cal game of buy­ing time and bring him to the nego­tia­ting table. That requi­res the cou­ra­ge and con­fi­dence to set our own agen­da, rather than merely react to his.

In doing so we would give the bra­ve peop­le of Ukrai­ne fresh hope. We would also send pre­cise­ly the right mes­sa­ge to Washing­ton: the path to a just and las­ting peace must be wal­ked together.

We will sup­port Ukrai­ne in its defence for as long as it takes. That is the decisi­on Euro­peans have made. The time has now come to back that poli­ti­cal pro­mi­se with an instru­ment that sends an unmistaka­ble signal of resi­li­en­ce to Moscow. In recent years, we have often play­ed it by ear. Now I am advo­ca­ting the mobi­li­sa­ti­on of finan­cial resour­ces on a sca­le that will secu­re Ukraine’s mili­ta­ry resi­li­en­ce for several years.

Ger­ma­ny has been, and remains, cau­tious on the issue of con­fis­ca­ting the Rus­si­an cen­tral bank’s assets that are fro­zen in Euro­pe, and with good rea­son. The­re are not only ques­ti­ons of inter­na­tio­nal law to con­si­der, but also fun­da­men­tal issu­es con­cer­ning the euro’s role as a glo­bal reser­ve cur­ren­cy. But this must not hold us back: we must con­si­der how, by cir­cum­ven­ting the­se pro­blems, we can make the­se funds avail­ab­le for the defence of Ukraine.

In my view a via­ble solu­ti­on should now be deve­lo­ped wher­eby — without inter­vening in pro­per­ty rights — we can make avail­ab­le to Ukrai­ne an interest-free loan of almost €140 bil­li­on in total. That loan would only be repaid once Rus­sia has com­pen­sa­ted Ukrai­ne for the dama­ge it has cau­sed during this war. Until then, the Rus­si­an assets will remain fro­zen, as deci­ded by the Euro­pean Council.

Such exten­si­ve assi­s­tance will requi­re bud­ge­t­a­ry gua­ran­tees from mem­ber sta­tes. Tho­se bila­te­ral gua­ran­tees should, as soon as the next Mul­ti­an­nu­al Finan­cial Frame­work is in place in 2028, be repla­ced by col­la­te­ra­li­sa­ti­on under the EU’s long-term budget.

The funds thus mobi­li­sed would secu­re Ukraine’s defence capa­bi­li­ties for several years. I will dis­cuss this pro­po­sal with the Euro­pean heads of sta­te and government at our mee­ting in Copen­ha­gen next Wed­nes­day. I pro­po­se that, at the Euro­pean Coun­cil at the end of Octo­ber, we give the man­da­te to pre­pa­re this instru­ment in a legal­ly secu­re manner.

That decisi­on should, ide­al­ly, be unani­mous — fai­ling that, it should be adop­ted by the lar­ge majo­ri­ty of mem­ber sta­tes who are firm­ly com­mit­ted to Ukrai­ne. We should also invi­te part­ners around the world that have fro­zen Rus­si­an assets to join the instru­ment. To this end, we will co-ordinate clo­se­ly with our part­ners in the G7.

For Ger­ma­ny, it will be important that the­se addi­tio­nal funds are sole­ly used to finan­ce Ukraine’s mili­ta­ry equip­ment, not for gene­ral bud­ge­t­a­ry pur­po­ses. Pay­ments should be dis­bur­sed in tran­ches. Mem­ber sta­tes and Ukrai­ne would joint­ly deter­mi­ne which mate­ri­el is pro­cu­red. In my view, such a com­pre­hen­si­ve pro­gram­me must also help to streng­t­hen and expand the Euro­pean defence indus­try. That would ser­ve both our collec­ti­ve secu­ri­ty and Euro­pean sovereignty.

In recent days we have been remin­ded of how com­pre­hen­si­ve­ly and sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly peace and free­dom in Euro­pe are under thre­at. As Euro­peans we hold power­ful means to resist that thre­at. The time has come to use them, so that we may defend our secu­re, free and united Europe.

src: click

That Putin fel­low seems to real­ly deser­ve what he has com­ing to him!