By now, the world has witnessed how Donald Trump and his little sidekick, JD Vance showed their ‘true colors’ as licentious, cowardly bullies, in a televised meeting with Ukrainian President Vlodomir Zelensky. Not only did they work to humiliate and discredit President Zelensky, but they initially permitted a reporter from the Russian propaganda network, Tass, to attend the meeting. Such inclusion of a propaganda channel for Putin, while barring legitimate news services such as the Associated Press (AP) and others, gave the appearance of a dictator’s paradise. Why was Putin’s mouthpiece permitted a seat in this meeting that served to publicly abuse Ukraine and their democratically elected president, Vlodomir Zelensky?
(Keep in mind, that Tass was permitted access after the AP was barred from attendance for the ‘heinous’ crime of refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by the ludicrous moniker aka the ‘Gulf of America.)’ This censorship of the AP falls in line with a ‘Putinesque’ vision of Amerika’s new dictatorship. It was predictable for Trump–but not presidential.
And finally, why did the lapdog legacy press fail to question Trump’s illegitimate strategy as he pushed the ‘old protection racket’, reminiscent of the Mafia?
Never in American history has any president publicly humiliated the leader of another nation, especially an ally like Ukraine, while favoring an enemy such as Russia. Now, Trump and his White House sycophants would argue that Russia is a ‘friend,’ but the actual evidence documents otherwise. The optics are bad. Was Tass’ presence there to serve as a government ‘minder’ sent by Putin to keep Trump in line–along with his republican toadies?
Could there be another more sinister reason why Trump is pushing the Kremlin lies?
On top of these vile political optics, the Trump administration recently made a decision that could seriously damage our national security, namely ordering the U.S. Cyber Command to ‘stand down’ where Russia is concerned. This has occurred in conjunction with Trump claiming Russia (and by default, Putin), as our geopolitical ‘friend’, deserving of our trust. Ironically, Putin’s Kremlin spokesman had a very different picture to paint just a year ago.
Putin’s spokesman declares the US to be an enemy…
In June of 2024, Russia declared that the U.S. is an enemy state through “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
And yet, Trump keeps accommodating Putin’s wishlist as his co-president Elon dismantles our government, especially in the areas of national security, intelligence, and cyber intelligence. More specifically, the Trump administration has apparently ‘deprioritized’ the cyber threat posed by Russia under Putin.
Journalist Martin Matishak reported on February 28, 2025 in The Record’s Cyber Daily that:
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered the US Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions, according to three people familiar with the matter. Hegseth gave the instruction to Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh, who then informed the organization’s outgoing director of operations, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Ryan Heritage, of the new guidance, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.”
Since that information leaked out, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or CISA, has denied this allegation. DHS Spokesman Tricia McLaughlin spoke to Infosecurity Magazine, and claimed the following: “The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has reaffirmed that it will pursue its mission to defend against all cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure, including those from Russia, under the Trump administration.” McLaughlin also challenged the veracity of The Guardian’s documentation, stating that…”The memo referenced in The Guardian’s ‘reporting’ is not from the Trump Administration, which is quite inconvenient to The Guardian’s preferred narrative.” What Ms. McLaughlin failed to note in her catty dig–is the ‘inconvenient fact that this story was reported by multiple outlets and not merely The Guardian. Not to be deterred by substantive documentation, the Trump administration’s CISA’s X account issued the following statement:
A CISA post on X further denied the allegations stating that…”Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
CISA’s mission is to defend against all cyber threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure, including from Russia. There has been no change in our posture. Any reporting to the contrary is fake and undermines our national security.
All arguments aside, the real issue remains national security as opposed to politicians ‘bitch-slapping’ each other on X. U.S. national cybersecurity is a serious concern. Not only that, but should we be entrusting our defenses to private contractors with no loyalty to anyone but the bottom line? With the money we spend on national defense, shouldn’t we be able to pay our loyal military personnel top dollar?
Cybersecurity pros warn about the danger presented by Russia…
The Guardian reported that “Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, said in a speech last week before a United Nations working group on cybersecurity that the U.S. was concerned by threats perpetrated by some states but only named China and Iran, with no mention of Russia in her remarks.” Now, if that omission weren’t enough to generate concern, another omission by Franz proved to be more problematic. Franz failed to mention the “Russia-based LockBit ransomware group, which the U.S. has previously said is the most prolific ransomware group in the world and has been called out in UN forums in the past.” So, why the concern over LockBit? Apparently LockBit “operates on a ransomware-as-service model, in which the group licenses its ransomware software to criminals in exchange for a portion of the paid ransoms.” So, who is Liesyl Franz and is she qualified to make these determinations? According to her bio, she has a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She has had some 20+ years in the cyber security field, holding posts in both public and private organizations, but she is not a tech expert. Her bio fails to list any educational background in tech, so how can she credibly determine the cyber security risk? More importantly, why do we have personnel with educational backgrounds in political science or law studies making scientific or technical determinations of threat concerns? How is Ms. Franz little more than a political hack blindly obeying Trump’s latest demand?
Russia’s history of cyber-warfare tied to organized crime…
A report prepared by the FBI and the Australian Federal Police concluded the following regarding cybercrime coming from Russia via a group known as Evil Corp:
“Evil Corp’s story is a prime example of the evolving threat posed by cybercriminals and ransomware operators. In their case, the activities of the Russian state played a particularly significant role, sometimes even co-opting this cybercrime group for its own malicious cyber activity.”
This report included a section titled: Cyber Proxies: Evil Corp and the Russian State, which concluded that:
“Whilst most cybercriminal activity is financially motivated, the Russian Intelligence Services have in some reported cases directed cybercriminals to conduct malicious cyber activity, or used malware strains for espionage purposes. For example, in 2017, two Russian FSB officers were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) for directing criminal hackers to compromise 500 million Yahoo accounts. Another notable Russian cybercriminal, Vitaly Kovalev, who was sanctioned by the UK and U.S. governments in 2023 for his senior role in the Trickbot cybercrime group, also had a relationship with the Russian Intelligence Services.”
The report’s conclusions added that :
“Evil Corp held a privileged position, and the relationship between the Russian state and this cybercriminal group went far beyond the typical state-criminal relationship of protection, payoffs and racketeering. In fact, prior to 2019, Evil Corp were tasked by Russian Intelligence Services to conduct cyber-attacks and espionage operations against NATO allies.”
Evil Corp had become “experts in laundering the proceeds of their cybercriminal activities. Highly organized, a huge amount of resource was invested in professionalizing their business, whether that be by managing money mule networks, cryptocurrency trading, setting up front companies or employing lawyers.”
I would ask Leizl Franz and Trump, given this information, how can you conclude that Russia poses no risk to our cybersecurity? Even if the GOP and MAGA are foolish enough to buy into this alleged ‘bromance’ between Putin and Trump; why would any legitimate leader want to place our national security at risk? While these questions sound more like something from the ‘theater of the absurd’; this is where we find ourselves in Trump’s oligarchy.
US Commander for Europe on Putin…
In April of 2024, Army General Christopher Cavoli, Commander of the U.S. European Command structure clearly stated on record that Russia presents as a “chronic threat” to the entire globe, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Cavoli also served as NATO’s supreme allied commander in the EU. General Cavoli testified: “We’re facing challenging times, to say the least, in the European theater. Russia’s brutal, unprovoked war has ravaged Ukraine for over two years. [Russian] forces are demolishing cities and are destroying innocent lives on a scale we have not seen since the Second World War.” General Cavoli also mentioned the covert assistance Russia is receiving in their war against Ukraine, from North Korea and China. To quote: “These countries are forming interlocking, strategic partnerships in an attempt to challenge the existing order. This is profoundly inimical to U.S. national interests.” General Cavoli clearly made the case that Russia is the EU’s enemy, and our enemy, when he said: “Russia does not intend to stop with Ukraine. Russian presents a chronic threat.” So, why did Trump ignore the consensus of experienced military officers and order the U.S. CyberCommand to ‘stand down’ when it comes to Russian espionage and other attacks?
Could it be about the rare earth minerals–and the money?
Rare earth minerals and our weapons systems…
Trump ordered the CyberCommand to ‘stand down’ regarding Russia at a critical juncture. Ukraine has reportedly sizable deposits of these rare earth minerals in areas that Russia illegally invaded and now controls militarily. So, why is this significant to the US military and our general national security?
Rare earth minerals are in every communications and weapons system globally. While the general public may have a passing acquaintance with this fact, the discussion of rare earth minerals is usually limited to their use in common household items such as smartphones or laptops. Rare earth minerals are absolutely necessary to many other critical systems such as the following: computer chips, light emitting diodes, missile guidance systems, nuclear reactor control rods, lasers, aircraft engines, satellite components, optical coatings, long-lived batteries for missiles, night vision goggles, and fuel cells. In fact, the Pentagon’s 2021 budget submission included the following statement: “Relying on foreign sources for these critical materials poses a risk to the DOD’s readiness to deter and defeat adversaries.” The Pentagon document specifically listed …”rare-earth element permanent magnets required for jet fighter engines, missile guidance systems, missile defense, space-based satellites, and communications systems among the critical needs.” So, once again the question must be asked; why is Trump sabotaging our national defense? Why did Trump order the U.S. Cyber Command to ‘stand down’ regarding Russia? Why does Trump seem to trust Putin, a sworn enemy of the US?
Back to Putin…
Putin has never ceased in his quest to attain world dominance. He has a history of spying on his enemies, including the U.S. And yet, Trump had our Cyber Command pause any monitoring of Russian actors who could be committing acts of espionage against us. This unorthodox command was given mere weeks after American security analysts identified a Russian based attempt to steal credentials and data from various American organizations using a platform known as Sandworm.
What is Sandworm–and how does it connect to Putin?
As it turns out, Sandworm … “is the operations wing of Russia’s Military Intelligence Unit 74455, part of the GRU, that has been blamed for waging cyberwarfare against America’s critical infrastructure. An example of Sandworm’s ‘handiwork,’ occurred in April of 2024 in the form of a cyberattack against both US and European water plants. Further reporting linked this intelligence group to water and hydroelectric utility disruptions according to Google’s Mandiant ‘threat-hunting’ team. One of these disruptions included multiple attempts to disrupt water facilities in Texas using ‘remote-management’ software. Furthermore, Sandworm works for Russia’s GRU, (military intelligence), is intimately linked to attacks against Ukraine. Sandworm is now recognized by Mandiant, as APT44. The attacks against Ukraine by Sandworm have included “data-wiping malware, knocking out a segment of satellite comms terminals as well as mobile and internet services; stealing military secrets; and shutting down a Ukrainian power plant.” Mandiant added that …”the threat posed by Sandworm is far from limited to Ukraine.” The Mandiant report also stated that … “A majority of the attack-and-leak activity that Mandiant has tracked from GRU-linked Telegram personas has centered on Ukrainian entities. However, CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn’s claimed intrusion activity has not been so limited “and extends to U.S. and European critical infrastructure organizations’ operational technology (OT).”
So, once again, why did Trump order our Cyber Command to stand down regarding Russia? Ironically, since the report leaked that CISA or Cyber Command had been ordered to halt any tracking of Russian threats; CISA has walked back this information. March 4, 2024, CISA denied any such order was given by the Trump administration. Again, the Trump team has blamed reporting done by The Guardian, calling it ‘garbage’ and ‘fake,’ yet other news outlets reported this story, including The Washington Post, New York Times, The Record, and Newsweek. Unfortunately, the truth–hurts. That’s a lesson that Trump and his sycophants like Caroline Leavitt, JD Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson, and others–have failed to learn.
The order for CISA or CyberCommand to ‘stand down’ and essentially, give Putin’s cyber criminals a ‘pass’, has been heavily documented. The order was in a word–stupid. It was also potentially criminal as it compromised our national security in incalculable ways. There is no legitimate excuse for this order.
CISA or CyberCommand is an integral part of our national defense, safeguarding not only our weapons systems but our overall infrastructure. That infrastructure covers everything from banking to water and sewage systems, the power grid and communications capacity. Failure to protect these systems from cyberattacks should be criminally investigated as possible espionage. To commit to anything less constitutes possible—treason.
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