Friday 29th of August 2025
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no parallel whatsoever....

The CONVERSATION website published an article in 2023 that paralleled Vladimir Putin 2022 “invasion of Ukraine” and Lenin/Stalin invasion of Poland in 1920… It is ludicrous and erroneous. It’s probably deliberate to belittle Putin and destroy Lenin at the same time. Yes, the Bolsheviks made mistakes, especially in trying to annex Poland into Russia, but Putin did not make a mistake... 

 

Russia’s disastrous decision to invade Poland in 1920 has parallels with Putin’s rhetoric over Ukraine

Peter Whitewood (the CONVERSATION)

 

Meanwhile, Trotsky, sometimes blamed for advocating this Poland invasion caper, understood the working class struggle.

 

And hence, with regard to technology above all else, we must ask ourselves: is it only an instrument of class oppression? It is enough to ask such a question to be able to answer at once: no, technology is a basic conquest of mankind. … The machine strangles the wage-slave. But the wage-slave can only be freed through the machine. Herein lies the root of the whole question.

              —Leon Trotsky, “Culture and Socialism” (1927)

This was nearly one hundred years ago — and this “class oppression” as if we were living in a confortable hell, in now under the strong grip of Artificial Intelligence… AI is smart, incisive, can create art beyond our imagination in a few seconds and can work non-stop… 

 

So, what about Trotsky?

According to the story in circulation in "academic folklore" as well as in accounts repeated for political generations by Trotskyist militants, in 1939-40 the Trotskyist movement debated the “class nature” of Stalinist Russia.

In the folklore, Trotsky staunchly defended the position that Russia remained a degenerated workers’ state, and would so remain as long as the economy was still nationalised. Shachtman, Burnham, and their associates, the minority, taking their ideas from the Italian Bruno Rizzi, defended the idea that Russia was not a degenerated workers’ state, but a new form of class society.

After the debate, the movement split into two irreconcilable streams, whose divergences thereafter widened until they wound up on different sides in the great divide of the Cold War: the “orthodox Trotskyists” on the side of the Stalinist bloc, and the heretical Shachtmanites either “neutral” or (for Shachtman himself in the 1960s) actively on the side of US imperialism.

With few variations, this account is common. Even the respectworthy Marxist scholar Hal Draper gives such an account, and an extremely “vulgar” version of it too, with a preposterous story about what Trotsky was doing in 1939-40: http://archive.workersliberty.org/wlmags/wl57/rizzi.htm.

The standard account is a gross misrepresentation. If there was a debate on that it was a matter of Trotsky elaborating, with himself, speeches for both sides. His main opponent, Max Shachtman, was still a workers’ statist. James Burnham, who thought Russia a class-exploitative system, was silent.

The “innocent” explanation for this misrepresentation is that, over the years, the story of the two post-Trotsky Trotskyisms has been telescoped, simplified, and condensed, so that the later-emerging divisions that can be said to be rooted in 1939-40 are projected back and the whole story is more neatly tied up. That may well be the explanation for the standard account appearing even in the memoirs of Al Glotzer, who was very old and by then thought the 1917 revolution should never have happened.

….

… the misrepresentations in the popular account of Bolshevism are not innocent, and nor are those in the prevailing account of 1939-40. In any case it results in a hiding, elimination even, of Trotsky's real thinking on Russia, and of the evolution of his ideas on Stalinism. What happened then?

In August 1939 Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, erstwhile greatest enemies, signed a pact of non-aggression. In fact it was far more than that. In secret clauses, Stalin undertook to provide Germany with raw materials. As Trotsky put it, Stalin enlisted as Hitler’s “quartermaster” for the Second World War.

 

The cartoonist David Low summed it up in the Evening Standard of 20 September 1939, presenting Hitler and Stalin both in military uniform and bowing to each other. “The scum of the earth, I believe?” “The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?”

 

 

b. The pact was the bugle-call for war, freeing Hitler to act without fear that Russia would attack him. On 1 September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. On 3 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany in defence of their Polish ally. The long-expected and greatly-feared new world war had started. It was not quite 21 years on from the end of the First World War, in November 1918.

It seemed to Trotsky to be only the second in a likely series of world wars that would, he came to think, be the “grave of civilisation”, unless the working class seized power in the advanced countries. That view proved to be wrong; but in 1939 it was not an unreasonable one.

 

c. On 17 September, Stalin invaded Poland from the east. On 19 September the Russian Stalinist and German Nazi armies met each other not as enemies but as close collaborators who in alliance had just “made their bones”, the first of World War Two, by carving up Poland.

 

d. On 24 September Stalin demanded that Estonia concede military bases to the USSR, or face invasion. Estonia agreed. In October, Stalin would make the same demand on the other Baltic states, Latvia and Lithuania, and force their agreement too.

 

e. On 12 October Stalin started making territorial demands on Finland. Finland would not agree to what Stalin wanted, and on 30 November Russia invaded Finland. Finland was on paper greatly outmatched, a David against an army of Goliaths, but incompetence, bungling, and disarray in the Russian army, whose top leaders and organisers had been slaughtered by Stalin in 1937, allowed the Finns to inflict defeats on the Russians and prolong their resistance.

There was serious talk of British and French forces landing in Finland to fight “Hitler’s quartermaster” [RUSSIA]. As the world war got going, it looked as if the Hitler-Stalin pact might become a lasting partnership in a long war.

 

On 12 March 1940, the Finnish war ended. Finland ceded territory to the USSR.

 

f. On 9 April 1940, Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, in part to forestall planned British landings in Norway.

 

g. On 9 May 1940, the German armies attacked Luxemburg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. In the First World War, the Germans invading France through Belgium had been stopped before they could reach Paris, and a terrible war of trench-fighting stalemate settled in for four years. In May 1940 the Germans broke through completely, conquering France. By June the German armies and their allies had control of the whole of Europe, barring Switzerland and a few countries on the margins: Sweden, Britain and Ireland, and Yugoslavia and Greece, which Germany would conquer in 1941.

Stalin’s pact with Hitler had led within nine months to Russia being left “alone” in Europe with an immensely strengthened Germany.

 

h. The Stalinist world movement, which for five years before late 1939 had advocated an alliance of “the democracies”, including Russia, for war against Hitler, swung behind the Hitler-Stalin alliance after a short period of confusion. Raucously, the Stalinist parties denounced the British and French “warmongers” and demanded peace — on Hitler’s terms. As for Poland? “Poland no longer exists”.

In Britain, Stalinists, the Independent Labour Party, pacifists, and others launched a “make peace with Hitler” campaign that at first got a lot of labour movement support. After the fall of France and the Nazi seizure of western Europe, much of that support fell away. But the Communist Party continued the “peace” campaign until Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941.

In Mexico, the Stalinists denounced the “Jewish Trotskyists”. In France, on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Russia, the Communist Party was negotiating with the German occupation forces for permission to publish a legal daily paper.

In western Europe, a notable current emerged that saw the Nazis as progressive — in “unifying” Europe, for example. Some of them, the French Neo-Socialists for example, collaborated with the occupying forces on that basis. That is a current that is largely forgotten now. One reason for this is that it is overshadowed in history by the enormous number of socialists — including most “Trotskyists” — who for decades adopted a similar approach to Stalinism and its spreading tide after 1944.

Natalia Sedova-Trotsky would say about this approach, in 1951: “In 1932 and 1933, the Stalinists, in order to justify their shameless capitulation to Hitlerism, declared that it would matter little if the Fascists came to power because socialism would come after and through the rule of Fascism. Only dehumanised brutes without a shred of socialist thought or spirit could have argued this way.

“Now, notwithstanding the revolutionary aims which animate you [the ‘orthodox Trotskyists’], you maintain that the despotic Stalinist reaction which has triumphed in Eastern Europe is one of the roads through which socialism will eventually come…”

 

HITLER HAD THUS DECIDED TO INVADE RUSSIA… Some released secret documents seem to indicate that the ALLIES, while fighting Germany, discreetly convinced Hitler that invading Russia was a “good idea”. For the Allies, this would divert German troops to an Eastern front, lightening the load on the West, AND at the same time, destroy Russia which the Americans had wanted to do since 1917.

27 million dead Russians later, one does not forget….

….

So, what about Putin?

The article in the CONVERSATION concludes:

Bolshevik fears of international conspiracies were not unique to the Soviet-Polish war. “Capitalist encirclement” was a deeply rooted conviction stemming from the international isolation of the 1917 Revolution. But the humiliating defeat to Poland in August 1920 – and the way the Bolsheviks explained this in conspiratorial terms – amplified an instinct to see “anti-Soviet blocs” everywhere.

Soviet military intelligence went on to write continuous inaccurate reports to this effect throughout the 1920s. And before Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, Stalin – behind closed doors – identified a coalition of Poland and the Baltic States, backed by Britain and France, as the central threat to Soviet security.

Putin, of course, is not a Bolshevik and how much he believes his own propaganda is hard to determine. And while Poland received relatively little support in 1920, the same cannot be said of Ukraine today. But echoes in Putin’s rhetoric and Russian propaganda of an older Soviet worldview – exaggerating interventionist blocs encircling Russia while refusing to recognise the agency of Ukraine – precisely how Lenin once saw Poland – are hard to ignore.

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GUS:

PRESENTLY, RUSSIA is winning an existential war against more than 30 Western countries, including the USA. It could be said that Trump wants “peace” to prevent Russia gaining more “Ukrainian” territory — which, as an aside, used to be Russian lands, until 1922 for the Donbass and Odessa — and until 1954 for Crimea…

This war was PROVOKED by the Western political elites.

To say the least, Putin has been very moderate, possibly too moderate in his response to the forceful deception and aggression of the West… Putin does not indulge in rhetoric nor propaganda. His words stand the test of historical facts — and the hypocritical West knows this, BUT still try the con-jobs.

The Article in the CONVERSATION also derided the discovery of bio-labs in Ukraine — bio-labs, the existence of which was confirmed by Victoria Nuland in order to promote their “non-nefarious” intent. Nuland can not be trusted EVER. These bio-labs had the hallmarks of being the descendants of the Nazi experiments during WW2…

So… there NO parallel between the Bolsheviks invasion of Poland in 1920 and Russia “limited military intervention” of 2022 — except the West chose to turn this into a full blown war, by scuttling a decent peace deal for Ukraine in 2022: Reinstating the Minsk agreements. The West has also supplied weapons to Ukraine, but cannot send troops without being nuked… THIS IS A HIGHLY DETERMINING FACTOR…

Our final point is that America exploited the Nazis in Ukraine to overthrow its legitimate government and to promote Russophobia to the max. Russophobia also permeates the CONVERSATION article which DOESN’T mention the Nazis in Ukraine…

— “Articles on The Conversation are written by academic experts with the help of journalists. All our work is free to read and republish. We want to give you the highest quality, unbiased information to help you make better decisions.”

BULLSHIT… One can smell the CONversation bias from a million miles away…

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

a dismal failure....

 

How Far Will Putin Compromise?
Despite what the Western media says, the Russian leader has offered concessions.

BY Ted Snider

 

The attempt to isolate Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, has never been a smashing success. Nevertheless, it has been a key component of the West’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it’s proved out of touch and unaligned with the emerging multipolar reality. Outside the West, America’s arrogant attempt to enforce its hegemony did the opposite of isolating Russia, pushing it into closer and firmer relations with China, India, Africa, and the broader BRICS+ community. Within the West, the isolation of Putin and Russia was much more successful.

But on August 15, that isolation was shattered. Putin’s plane landed on American soil for the first in-person talks between the leaders of Russia and the U.S.—indeed, the first major talks between Putin and any Western leader—since the war in Ukraine began.

The summit, held in Alaska, seems to have been a success, assuming realistic expectations of a first “feel-out meeting,” as Trump called it. Going into the summit, Trump offered some metrics for evaluating whether it was going well. The president said he would know how it would go in the first minutes. After Putin arrived, Trump looked him in the eye, laughed, warmly shook Putin’s hand, and invited him to ride in his presidential limousine. Trump also said that if the summit went well, he would talk to the press with Putin; if it went badly, he would address them alone. The leaders spoke together. Trump added that if it wasn’t a success, there would be severe consequences for Russia. After the summit, the threatened sanctions were off, for now (though secondary tariffs targeting India remained).

 

Putin, for his part, said they had reached an understanding that he hoped could help bring about peace. Trump insisted the meeting was “extremely productive” and that “many points were agreed upon with only a very few left unresolved.” One unnamed point of disagreement, Trump said, was significant, but there was “a very good chance of getting there.”

Putin seems to have won an important diplomatic victory on the structure of negotiations. Trump came out of the summit saying that the best course of action was “to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement” and that now “it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done.” 

Russia has consistently refused the unconventional idea, pushed by the U.S. and Europe, of a ceasefire coming before negotiating the war’s underlying disputes. Years after Ukraine and Europe had used the Minsk accords with Russia as a deception to buy time to build an army for a military solution instead of the diplomatic solution the accord purported to guarantee, Russia resolved to put the ceasefire after the agreements. Before the Russians gave Ukraine time to restock weapons and raise troops, they were going to settle the issues that led to the war, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. 

 

There were other important points that Trump and Putin agreed upon, too. The one significant point that remained unsolved may have been the complicated question of security guarantees for Ukraine.

Trump’s reversal on an immediate ceasefire was a major takeaway for Putin, but the U.S. president is not the only one who made concessions. Though largely ignored by the western media, Putin also seems to have made significant concessions to keep diplomacy alive. A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that “Putin is ready for peace—for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump.” Any compromises that Putin has made pertain to Western demands that, though approaching Moscow’s red lines, do not cross them. Conversely, he has not compromised on the fundamental issues that cross the very red lines over which Russia went to war.

The most significant concession by Putin regards territorial demands. Back in 2022, Putin redrew the map of Russia to include the Crimean peninsula, the eastern Donbas region, and the southern provinces Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow has insisted that this new reality be recognized. In the summit with Trump, Putin offered the compromise that Russia would agree to freeze the current lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for Ukraine giving up the Donbas, including parts it still hangs on to. Moreover, in return for the parts of the Donbas that Kiev still holds, Moscow would return small areas of Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk provinces.

 

This compromise is consistent with Moscow’s red lines because the Donbas provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk, matter more to the Kremlin than the other provinces it has occupied, due to the threat to ethnic Russians’ lives and rights there beginning in 2014 and the military threat to the Donbas since the days before Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Plus, completing the capture of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would require either a very long, difficult war or significantly escalating the current one.

Putin has not, and will not, abandon Moscow’s reddest of red lines. He will not compromise on the demand that NATO never expand to Ukraine. And, after the broken promise of no NATO expansion eastward at the end of the Cold War, Russia will not settle for a gentleman’s agreement. This time, the guarantee that Ukraine can never join NATO will have to be delivered in a legally binding form.

Though Putin cannot compromise on NATO, he seems to have compromised on Ukrainian–Western relations by greenlighting Kiev’s joining the European Union. Though this concession is a compromise by Putin on Russia’s original position, it is not a recently won compromise: Moscow was open to EU membership for Ukraine at the Istanbul talks in the weeks following the invasion.

 

The third compromise is less certain. While some sources report that Putin is holding to his original position that Ukraine must agree to limits on its armed forces, other sources report that Putin has allowed this demand to slip away. This point may be one that Moscow is willing to negotiate. As long as there is a prohibition against long-range weapons that are capable of reaching Russia, Putin could feel that Moscow’s red lines can accommodate this concession. First, such limits would be nearly impossible to enforce, especially with Ukraine producing some of its own simpler weapons. Second, with Ukraine not in NATO and NATO not in Ukraine and the Donbas safely protected within Russia, Moscow may feel it can compromise on the size and capabilities of Ukraine’s armed forces.

This thorny question of post-war security for Ukraine—and for Russia—may be the significant one to which Trump was referring when he talked about issues that have not yet yielded agreement. Still, the Trump administration has signaled that some progress was made on the issue. After the Alaska summit, Trump saidthat Putin had “agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine” and said that this concession was a “very significant step.” The White House even said that Putin was open to “Article 5-style” security guarantees for Ukraine, referring to the collective defense provision of the NATO charter.

If this is true, this would be a very significant compromise by Putin. But there is a caveat. Moscow and European capitals differ critically on who would provide that Article 5-like guarantee. Europe and Ukraine insist that the security guarantee would be backed by Europe. In one proposal, if Russia attacked Ukraine again, European leaders would have 24 hours to decide if they would provide military support to Ukraine. In Russia’s version, that security guarantee must come, not only from the UK, France, and the United States, but also from China and even Russia itself.

Kiev and Europe object that this is an absurd proposal designed to give Moscow an effective veto over whether the guarantors would come to Ukraine’s defense and is intended to kill the negotiations. They also see it as a poison pill intended to doom negotiations.

But there may be a more charitable way of reading Moscow’s demand. The five countries that Moscow included are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Moscow seems to prefer that the UN, and not the anti-Russian Western bloc, oversee the security guarantee.

Russia insists that it not be excluded from decisions on how a security guarantee for Ukraine would be enacted and enforced. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that security cannot be “unilateral,” that Russia cannot be excluded from the security arrangement, and that the final arrangement must be based “on the principles of indivisible security.” That means the West cannot advance its own security at the expense of Russia’s, which Putin argues the West has been doing since the end of the Cold War with NATO’s encroachment to its very borders. 

Though Trump originally suggested that the U.S. was prepared to send troops to Ukraine, he seems to have gone back on that decision, to the great disappointment of Europe and Ukraine. The U.S. increasingly has little appetite for challenging this Russian red line. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, told European military leaders that the U.S. will play only a minimal role in any security guarantee for Ukraine.

Vice President J.D. Vance has been clear on the subject. “I think that we should expect, and the president certainly expects, Europe to play the leading role here,” Vance told Fox News last week. The vice president explained that Europe would “carry the burden” and take the “lion’s share” of the responsibility for guaranteeing Ukraine’s security.

The White House has been emphatic that the U.S. will not put boots on the ground. Trump has said that “European nations are going to take a lot of the burden” and provide the “first line of defence,” while the U.S. was “going to help them.” Trump said this help will come not from NATO and that it will come “by air,” leaving vague whether that means fighter jets, surveillance drones, intelligence, or air-defense systems.

Though the Western media consistently reports that Putin has been uncompromising and is not truly interested in a diplomatic end to the war, he has made some compromises, including a significant concession on Russia’s territorial demands. He has also made concessions on EU membership for Ukraine and thus its ability to reorient itself to the West. And perhaps he has made, or is willing to make, concessions on the strength of the Ukrainian armed forces. Crucially, Moscow also seems to have agreed to security guarantees for Ukraine, so long as those guarantees are not just NATO in disguise. The Kremlin insists: There can be no European or American troops on Ukrainian soil. But there are lots of non-European countries, including in BRICS+ and elsewhere in the Global South, who have an interest in a fair diplomatic conclusion to the war and who could act as peacekeepers. Russia wants those peacekeepers to be keeping a peace that is part of a broader security arrangement that embraces all of Europe, including Russia. The U.S., too, should seek to replace the security arrangement that has isolated and threatened Russia since the missed opportunity provided by the end of the Cold War.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-far-will-putin-compromise/

 

READ FROM TOP....

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

The attempt to isolate Russia and its president by the West has been a dismal failure.....

hits on kiev....

Russia launched long-range strikes on Ukrainian military targets using a variety of weapons, including hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missiles, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported Thursday. 

The operation hit several weapons plants and airfields, the MOS claimed, confirming earlier reports of an attack from Kiev. Ukraine’s military claimed it intercepted most of the incoming drones and missiles but acknowledged successful Russian strikes at 13 locations, as additional damage caused by debris from downed weapons.

One of the attacks was apparently captured on CCTV, with footage circulating online showing two missiles hitting the same location in central Kiev. Some reports identified the site as the office of defense company Ukrspecsystems on Zhilyanskaya Street, which police cordoned off Thursday.

Founded in 2014, Ukrspecsystems manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles, including the long-range PD-2, which has reportedly been used in kamikaze drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, including Moscow.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/623629-kiev-kinzhal-missile-strikes/

 

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The head of the European Union's executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has spoken of her outrage at Russia's deadliest onslaught on Kyiv since July - which also damaged the EU's delegation office in the Ukrainian capital.

At least 23 people, including four children, were killed and dozens more wounded in the bombardment, Ukrainian officials said. 

All but one of the dead were in a five-storey residential building that was destroyed.

The EU's diplomatic mission and nearby British Council were hit in central Kyiv. In a strongly worded statement, von der Leyen said Russian missiles struck close to the EU office: "Two missiles hit in a distance of 50m (165ft) of the delegation within 20 seconds."

Ukrainian forces said Russia had fired almost 600 drones and more than 30 ballistic and cruise missiles - the biggest attack on the capital this month.

Twenty-two of the 23 killed were in the residential block targeted in the south-eastern Darnytskyi district on Kyiv's left bank, Ukraine's DSNS emergency service said.

A missile tore through the block of flats at about 03:00, causing it to collapse.

Diggers removed rubble, and rescue workers clambered on top of smouldering parts of the building looking for survivors.

Officials said three of the children killed were aged two, 14 and 17. Several other youngsters were wounded.

The overnight attacks followed a US-led diplomatic offensive aimed at bringing an end to the war and infuriated the UK as well as the EU.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accused Russia's Vladimir Putin of "sabotaging hopes of peace", while EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said they showed "a deliberate choice to escalate and mock peace efforts".

Moscow had chosen "ballistics instead of the negotiating table", said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who reiterated the need for "new, tough sanctions" on Russia.

Although the Kremlin said Russia was "still interested" in negotiations, von der Leyen said the strikes were "another grim reminder" that Russia would "stop at nothing to terrorise Ukraine", killing men, women and children and even targeting the EU.

The US special envoy on Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Russia's "egregious attacks" on residential areas threatened the peace that President Donald Trump was pursuing.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Russia had "shown its true face again", and the fact that the EU delegation had come under fire was an indication of the Kremlin's increasing brazenness.

READ MORE:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3y7m2gz0o

 

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Russian oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia through the key Druzhba pipeline have been restored after disruptions caused by Ukrainian strikes, authorities in both nations have confirmed. The pipeline has been repeatedly targeted in recent weeks, with Bratislava and Budapest lashing out at Kiev. Moscow has described the attacks as “terrorism.”

The successful repair was confirmed by Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Sakova on Wednesday. “I hope that the operation remains stable and that there will be no more attacks on energy infrastructure,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Hungarian oil group MOL, which operates refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, confirmed that crude was arriving in both countries, though it gave no details about volumes or schedules.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto earlier said that while the pipeline had sustained “severe damage” from Ukraine’s latest missile and drone strike, he was informed by Moscow that “a temporary solution was found, so oil deliveries to Hungary can resume tomorrow in test mode at lower volumes.”

Both Hungary and Slovakia – which have been frequent critics of the EU support for Kiev – have denounced the Ukrainian attacks on the Druzhba pipeline, which spans more than 4,000 kilometers and is a critical energy lifeline for both countries.

In this vein, Szijjarto said the raids jeopardize Hungary’s energy security and that it was “outrageous that some Hungarian politicians and media defend the Ukrainians who attacked the pipeline, and the European Commission keeps on claiming there is ‘no supply risk’.”

Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar said that the strikes not only ran directly against his country’s interests but also harmed Ukraine itself, as Kiev is dependent on diesel fuel supply from Slovakia.

According to a letter shared by Hungarian officials, US President Donald Trump said he was also “very angry” about the attacks.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/623626-russian-oil-druzhba-restored-ukraine-attacks/

 

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Two civilians have been killed and 21 others injured in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Yenakievo on Thursday, the top regional official has said.

According to Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) head Denis Pushilin, US-made HIMARS rocket launchers and kamikaze drones were used in the attack. He added that nine houses in Yenakievo and nearby Gorlovka were damaged.

Yenakievo was close to the front line until Russian forces gradually pushed Ukrainian troops westward, liberating the city of Dzerzhinsk (known in Ukraine as Toretsk) in February.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/623391-ukraine-shells-yenakievo-himars/

 

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Russian law enforcement has broken up a Ukrainian intelligence cell in Donbass that was responsible for attempted assassinations of Russian officials and was planning further attacks, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has said. 

In a statement on Friday, the FSB said it had uncovered “an agent group of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR)” operating in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

The group included two Russian nationals, aged 38 and 28, who were allegedly involved in car bombings in March and December 2024 targeting a Kherson Region government employee and a former senior official of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service in Donetsk. 

The FSB said the men also prepared attacks against the head of a municipal administration in Donetsk and an unnamed commander of a volunteer battalion.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/623410-ukrainian-terrorist-cell-dismantled-donbass/

 

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Russia is doing everything possible to put an end to the Ukraine conflict, which started when Kiev began to attack the civilian population of Donbass in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Moscow does not see countries as “unfriendly,” but rather sees “unfriendly elites” in certain nations, he said on Friday during a meeting with young scientists at the nuclear center in the town of Sarov. 

“Propaganda there works, of course. They brainwash people and say that we started the war,” he said. 

“They forget that they themselves started the war in 2014, when they began using tanks and aircraft against the civilian population of Donbass,” Putin said.

“That’s when the war began. And we are doing everything possible to stop it.”

Putin has previously said that one of the core reasons Russia began its special military operation in 2022 was to protect the populations of Donbass from “genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime.” 

Moscow had long accused Kiev of attacking civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which moved to cede from Ukraine following the Western-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

Both republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in September 2022. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia shortly after the coup, in 2014.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/623435-putin-stop-ukraine-war/

 

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MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.