By Brian McDonald, Substack, 9/17/25

The announcement came on Tuesday with the matter-of-factness of a budget line, but the scale of it was closer to a civilisational wager. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin sat at a rudimentary government meeting and said that President Vladimir Putin had signed off on what will be Europe’s largest ever high-speed rail project: more than 4,500 kilometres of new track, criss-crossing the country from Moscow to St Petersburg, Minsk, Yekaterinburg, Rostov, Krasnodar, Sochi, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. These trains will be built at home and capable of reaching up to 400 kilometres an hour, he added.

It’s obviously tempting for Russia’s passionate legion of detractors to dismiss such plans as a Potemkin promise, the sort of grandiose scheme floated in Moscow only to sink beneath its own concrete. And that’s especially true in today’s divisive climate, but look closer and the outlines are sharper than the cynics understand. What’s more, construction on the first leg (Moscow to St Petersburg) has already been underway since last year with completion targeted for 2028, so this clearly isn’t the stuff of long fingers.

The full scheme imagines four main arteries with the northern line from Moscow to St Petersburg the easiest to visualise, shrinking the journey from an already pretty fast four hours to barely two. The southern route is longer and more ambitious and will run from Moscow down through Ryazan, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don and into Krasnodar, before the hardest stretch of all… tunnelling to Sochi. Anyone who has sweated through the current circuitous crawl, four and a half hours to cover less than 200 kilometres as the crow flies, knows what a transformation this would be for the region’s potential. After all, the Kuban is the closest thing Russia has to a California or Andalusia but (much like its Spanish counterpart) it still remains relatively underdeveloped.

Then there’s the western branch to Minsk in Belarus, passing through Smolensk and Vyazma; a line that, in a very different political climate from today, could potentially plug directly into Western European networks via Warsaw to Berlin. And finally add the proposed eastern leg to Yekaterinburg, passing Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan, and a journey that today swallows 26 hours could be cut to around five. When you tie it all together, you’d be linking roughly 60 million people by high-speed transit, which in terms of sheer connectivity would be the most ambitious transport project ever attempted on the European continent.

That said, it would hardly be the first time that Russians dreamed big on the rails. Tsarist-era engineers once carved the Trans-Siberian across 9,289 kilometres over seven time zones, while the Soviets drove the Baikal-Amur Mainline through permafrost and mountains at enormous cost to reach Sovetskaya Gavan on the Sea of Japan. Russians have long measured their modernisation in these terms; in a country this vast, the tracks are understandably as much a symbol as a means of travel.

Many will naturally ask, “but why now?” Well, the easy answer is a desire for prestige, but this alone won’t shift earth by the tonne or finance kilometres of track and the deeper explanation here is providing employment given Russia has currently mobilised hundreds of thousands of men on wartime salaries. Quite obviously, in peacetime, many will not be needed in uniform and nor would it make sense to keep paying them to stand idle so a labour-intensive project like high-speed rail provides an obvious soft-landing pad… absorbing veterans, keeping unemployment down, and maintaining relatively high salaries while keeping them useful.

There’s also the question of stimulus, given that a scheme of this size would help to stave off recession by adding a few percentage points to GDP growth annually and in a best-case scenario, if sanctions ease, it could even drive a late Putin-era boom, so the political logic is as plain as the economic.

Furthermore, on the face of it, it appears Moscow can readily afford it, bar some unexpected ‘Black Swan’ event and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov reminded us only last week that Russia’s national debt is around 15% of nominal GDP. Even if he borrows another $200 billion it would still sit under 25%; a figure that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Western Europe, where governments gorge themselves on credit merely to keep welfare payments moving. Almost everything, too, will be built domestically, making the largesse an internal multiplier rather than a drain and where Russia lacks technical know-how, China can supply it given Beijing has already laid down some 50,000 kilometres of high-speed rail.

In reality, the ghosts that haunt projects like this are related to corruption rather than engineering and the spectre of the Sochi Olympics, with billions skimmed and the Western press laughing at the excess, hangs overhead. Yet many of the leading culprits of that debacle were jailed, a clear signal that theft on such a level won’t be shrugged off in future; and in fairness the city itself has been transformed with its population doubling in fifteen years. The Crimea Bridge (the longest in Europe, whatever your thoughts on the politics of it) was built quickly and serves as another reminder that Russia can, when pressed, deliver complex infrastructure feats.

The open question, of course, is whether the new rail scheme will follow the same discipline, and only time will tell. Realistically, the obstacles are formidable and temper any certainty: sanctions will complicate financing, the tunneling in the southern mountains will be technically punishing and total costs could run far beyond official estimates.

What makes the plan more striking is the vacuum elsewhere. Western Europe once thought in terms of ‘grands projets,’ linking peoples and economies with real vision but now it thinks in terms of expensive subsidies and empty slogans. Spain, for example, boasts a large and impressive high-speed network, but it’s fragmentary and underused while France long ago rowed back on its TGV ambitions and Germany’s infrastructure is falling apart, with visitors to last year’s European Football Championships left stunned at the decrepitude.

Moscow, by contrast, is sketching a line that could, if there’s sufficient Eurasian rapprochement, one day run all the way from London to Hong Kong. Today that sounds fantastical, but link Berlin to Warsaw, Warsaw to Minsk, Minsk to Moscow, Moscow to Yekaterinburg, and from there into Kazakhstan or Mongolia and down into China and the map begins to look possible. Politics would have to change beyond recognition, of course, but the geometry is already getting there.

So, is Russia really about to build Europe’s largest high-speed rail network? The sceptics will say no, while the realists will say: the first part of it for sure, and let’s see how the rest goes. The political need to absorb demobilised soldiers, the economic need for stimulus, and the strategic need to tie together a vast country… well, all these factors suggest it may well happen.

This is about more than a railway, it’s a bet on whether Russia can still dream big in an era when its Western European rivals no longer even dare to dream.

By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 9/25/25

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of US military generals and admirals stationed around the world to an urgent meeting, scheduled to take place at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, next week, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

There are approximately 800 generals and admirals in the US and at US bases worldwide, and sources told the Post that Hegseth’s order applies to every senior officer with the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral and above. The directive has been described as highly unusual and possibly unprecedented.

“None of the people who spoke with the Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this,” the Post report said.

The reason for the meeting is unclear, and even the generals and admirals are reportedly unaware of the purpose. The meeting may be related to Hegseth’s recent orders for major changes at the Pentagon, including a directive to reduce the number of four-star officers by 20%.

Another possibility is that Hegseth is ordering the meeting to prepare the senior military officers for a new war of major military escalation. A congressional aide speaking to CNN said that unless Hegseth planned to announce “a major new military campaign or a complete overhaul of the military command structure, I can’t imagine a good reason for this.”

There are several areas around the world where the US could potentially launch a new war, including Venezuela, as the US has deployed a fleet of warships to the Caribbean and has begun bombing boats in the area under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, though US officials have told The New York Times that the real purpose of the deployment is regime change.

The US and Israel could be preparing to launch another war on Iran, as the US has maintained a hardline policy against the Islamic Republic since the ceasefire that ended the 12-Day War, and tensions are soaring in Eastern Europe between Russia and NATO. President Trump has also recently floated the idea of retaking Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, an idea that would require military force since it has been rejected by the Taliban.

The War Department may also be looking to turn military operations inward, as President Trump recently declared that Antifa is a “domestic terrorist organization.”

Later on Thursday, both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance downplayed the meeting. “It’s not particularly unusual that generals who report to the secretary of War and then to the president of the United States are coming to speak with the secretary of War,” Vance said. “It’s actually not unusual at all and I think it’s odd that you’ve made it into such a big story.”

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 9/25/25

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) published a report warning about the EU’s plans to occupy Moldova, which holds its next parliamentary elections on Sunday. According to their sources, large-scale protests are expected after the ruling liberal-globalists falsify the vote, following which President Maia Sandu will request help to put down what she’ll frame as a Russian-backed revolt. SVR also repeated last winter’s warning about threats to Russian troops in Transnistria independent of the aforesaid scenario.

On that topic, they revealed that “A NATO ‘landing’ is being prepared in Ukraine’s Odessa region to intimidate Transnistria. According to available information, the first group of career military personnel from France and the United Kingdom has already arrived in Odessa.” This bombshell comes less than a week after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed during an ambassadorial roundtable discussion that Russia would consider any foreign troops in Ukraine to be “legitimate military target[s].”

While rumors have abounded since the beginning about Western troops in Ukraine and not just “mercenaries” (even if the latter are active servicemen on leave and out of uniform), Russia hadn’t hitherto confirmed this, ergo its repeated threats to target them if they deploy there. The context within which SVR reported the presence of French and UK troops in Odessa concerns Europe’s, Ukraine’s, and US warmongers’ efforts to manipulate Trump into escalating US involvement in the conflict.

That led to Trump flip-flopping on Ukraine and even approving NATO downing Russian jets if they’re accused of violating the bloc’s airspace, which risks emboldening them to stage a provocation for pulling him into mission creep even if it’s really all just “sarcasm” or “5D chess” on his part like some believe. All the while, reports have swirled about the Western security guarantees he (or at least his team) envisages for Ukraine, which could include a “no-fly zone” and even Western troops over and in at least parts of it.

All of this is relevant with respect to the Romanian-Moldovan flank of this conflict, which as this analysis here from over the summer explains, can be used as NATO’s launchpad for the aforesaid scenarios. Given what SVR just revealed, and there’s no reason to doubt their sources nor SVR’s sincerity in publicly reporting what they just discovered, some uniformed Western troops (French and UK) are already in Ukraine. To make matters even more sensitive, they’re in Odessa, which Russians consider their own.

Even though it’s not in the Kremlin’s crosshairs, Russians still hold it close to their hearts for historical reasons after their ancestors built that city from the ground up, thus making it all the more provocative that the French finally began acting on their speculative plans from early 2024. Putin must now decide whether to treat them and the Brits there as legitimate targets exactly as Lavrov said Russia might do or hold back for now to avoid the escalation that those two want for pulling Trump into mission creep.

The dilemma is that striking Western troops in Odessa could spark a crisis for manipulating Trump into escalating the US’ involvement in the conflict, while holding back for now could create facts on the ground that become even more difficult (and possibly more dangerous) for Russia to reverse later on. It was warned in late August that “Direct NATO Intervention In Ukraine Might Soon Dangerously Turn Into A Fait Accompli”, which is now arguably unfolding, it’s just a question of how Russia will respond to this.

By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 9/23/25

Developments today [9/23/25] from Moldova and Transnistria as reported by Dima on the Military Summary Channel seem significant and I will briefly summarize them as he has reported them, with a view to amending, adding or correcting in the light of subsequent evolution over the hours and days ahead.

Dima starts by noting that there has been another significant Ukrainian drone attack over the past 24 hours on targets in or close to Moscow. There were many explosions, and many drones were brought down: Moscow says 70+ were destroyed.

In Kiev, Zelenskey has adopted a new bill by which he can send Ukrainian forces abroad. Specifically, the bill would allow him to send troops to Turkey and to the UK for national security purposes, to receive complex military equipment and to master its use. Additionally he has proposed sending the Ukrainian navy to Turkey and to the UK. Dima refers to the “remnants” of the Ukrainian navy. Russian naval drones have apparently chalked up significant (and grossly underreported, if true) success in attacks on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea so that Ukraine wants to protect its remaining ships by sending them to Turkey (and the UK?) and having them sail under different flags.

If the above is true, then this strikes me as incredibly dangerous, inviting all kinds of mischevous false flag shenannigans. Dima says, more specifically, that Ukraine plans to move its fleet from the Odessa region. This manouver may also be related to developments in Moldova.

There will be elections this coming weekend in Moldova. These are structured to favor pro-European votes since there are polling booths available throughout Moldovan diasporic Europe but none available in Moldovan diasporic Russia The current Moldovan president, the highly pro-European Sandu, has said that a victory for pro-Russian forces in the coming elections would be dangerous for pro-European interests given that Moldova has been seen as a springboard for an attack by European forces against Russia in the region of Odessa, something that Sandy presumably favors. Russian intelligence has issued a statement that claims that Europe is preparing to occupy Moldova. There is already a concentration of European forces nearby in Romania.

The transfer of troops from Romania into Moldova is intended to intimidate pro-Russian Transnistria. British and other European forces are already in Odessa in preparation for this operation, timed for after the Moldovan elections on September 28. There have already been significant pro-Russian protests in Moldova that are allegedly backed by a pro-Russian exiled Moldovan oligarch, Ilan Shor and there have been multiple arrests of Russian demonstrators over the past day or so. It is rumored that Russia plans to instigate riots on Sunday in the event that the elections do not go their way (i.e. if the current President is voted back into power), presumsably in a bid to dissuade European powers from occupying the country.

A further complication is that the new president of Romania – in power only because the EU on highly dubious grounds and in collaboration with a western-shaped Romanian intelligence institution, thwarted an election that would otherwise have been won by an opponent to the war with Russia – favors the absorption of Moldova into Romania.

This may be the real reason why Zelenskiy wanted RADA’s approval for moving Ukrainian forces abroad. In the event that things do not run in European or Ukrainian favor in Moldova, Zelenskiy plans to participate in a small war designed to destabilize Transnistria. In this event, reports Dima, Russia would most likely respond with the use of Oreshnik missiles.

In conclusion, therefore, we may rightly worry that European determination to lure the Trump administration back into the “defense” of Europe, even at a time when Ukraine is on the verge of economic collapse and many if not most European economies are economically stagnant if not, as in the case of Germany, in actual recession, has reached such a paroxysm of fanaticism and recklessness that Europe would rather push the world into World War Three than …. than, what?

This – the “what” – is the great mystery, really, and I see few commentators who express who demonstrate convincing confidence that they really have the answers. Do the Europeans really believe their own paranoia about Russian intentions? If so, is this because of secret evidence unreleased to the rest of the world? I doubt it. Very much. Are European leaders brainwashed by neocon ideology and an anti-Russian propaganda campaign initiated principally by Great Britain in the nineteenth century and that has persisted through Tsarist, Bolshevik and post-Soviet periods? Perhaps, or perhaps leaders are exploiting the brainwashing of their publics in order to puruse a long-established wet-dream of destabilizing Russia, dividing it and robbing it, one way or another, of its mineral wealth. Or is it all about the “defense” industry pushing for more war, as much war as possible, so as to profit from arms sales. Or is this just a pantomime enacted for the benefict for darker, deeper and certainly much richer forces as part of some as yet articulated (for public benefit) and substantiated agenda?

The US has ignored Russian proposals to at least extend the START treaty for another year to allow time for it to be renegotiated. Putin has consequently just told his National Security Council that the START treaty is effectively dead. Scott Ritter has warned us today that this will lead inexorably to the US tripling or quadrupling the number of its warheads on its missiles, and transforming denuclearized B52s back into nuclear-delivery vehicles. This of course will prompt Russia to respond likewise.

Trump propels the proxy war with Russia over Ukraine the the war forward. He does not do this by commiting unlimited wealth, which had been the US playbook until Trump called a halt to the flow a few months ago in favor of US weapons that Europe has ordered and paid for, but he has just said he will recommence the flow of US weapons through NATO, and has told Ukraine that it can continue the war, win the war, and regain all the territory that it has lost. So, for today, Trump is encouraging Ukraine to kill many more of its young men, and calling an end to a peace process that was going absolutely nowhere, in any case – fundamentally because the West cannot bring itself to admit that Russia too has security concerns.

It would be better and safer if Trump simply abandoned Ukraine to its and to Europe’s own devices, which would be followed by a Russian victory and an end to the war on Russian terms and a possible start to talks for a new global and regional security architecture. Well, that is not going to happen, not for a while.

With the US continuing to supply weapons on its own account, the war will continue for longer; there will be many more deaths, Europe and Ukraine will together drive themselves into economic oblivion and pathetic dependence on expensive US LNG, of which the US cannot guarantee a continuing supply nor the price at which it is supplied. The pressures on Europe will further split the continent apart. China will breathe a sigh of relief because it will not be the sole or even the prime target of fruitless US obsession to sustain its own hegemony giving it more time to build up its armed and nuclear forces to quite a different level of threat, in preparation for a time, should it ever return, that the US feels ready to continue the game. Russia will continue to be a major supplier of energy to China and India and, almost certainly, and indirectly through Chinese and Indian vessels, to Europe too. In a world of artificially constricted energy supply, Russia and its allies, with the potential support of a more Russian-friendly Saudi Arabia and, of course, Iran, and of the BRICS generally will grow richer and more independent than ever of Western markets.

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 9/7/25

All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please click this link.

On August 30th, Andriy Parubiy was shot dead in broad daylight in Lviv, Ukraine. A key figure in the foreign-fomented Maidan putsch and a prominent and influential politician locally for many years, he was mourned by a welter of British, European and US officials. Within three days, Parubiy’s murderer was arrested and pleaded guilty. Wholly unremorseful, the assassin claimed his actions were “revenge on the state” for his son having disappeared – presumed dead – while fighting in Bakhmut in 2023.

Yet, there is almost certainly more to this story than meets the eye. In the immediate aftermath of Parubiy’s slaying, claims emerged he had months earlier requested formal protection from the SBU, only to be rebuffed. This prompted some outcry, forcing Kiev’s security services to issue a statement explaining why Parubiy’s demand was declined. Curiously though, a press conference was subsequently convened at which the SBU and local law enforcement contradictorily denied he had ever asked any state authority to be safeguarded.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Parubiy took an enormous number of sensitive secrets to his grave, which a great many individuals and entities have a significant interest in remaining concealed forever. A longstanding, outspoken ultranationalist, in 1991 he cofounded the openly Neo-Nazi Social-Nationalist Party – later rebranded Svoboda – and 1998 – 2004 ran its paramilitary wing, Patriot of Ukraine. The unit, like its parent political party, aggressively advocated insurrectionary violence, and espoused virulent, genocidal hatred of Russia and Russians.

Parubiy was a key figure in Kiev’s US-orchestrated 2004 Orange Revolution. His role in the Maidan coup and all that followed, which sent Ukraine hurtling towards war with Moscow, was considerably more outsized. After protests erupted in November 2013, Parubiy founded the “Maidan Self-Defense Force”. While ostensibly responsible for protecting “peaceful” demonstrators from riot police, the Force acted in close coordination with fascist paramilitary group Right Sector. The latter routinely engaged in incendiary, violent acts to provoke adverse responses from law enforcement.

The protests ended with elected President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing Ukraine on February 22nd 2014. This followed the sniper massacre of demonstrators in Kiev’s Freedom – now Maidan – Square. Government forces – perhaps with Russian assistance – were blamed for the bloodshed, triggering an avalanche of international condemnation, and threats from Paribuy’s Maidan Self-Defense to storm the President’s residence and remove him from power by force if he didn’t resign. Yanukovych’s government was replaced by a fascist-riddled unelected administration, hand-picked by the US State Department’s Ukraine point-person Victoria Nuland.

Parubiy was appointed National Security and Defense Council chief, overseeing the launch and execution of Ukraine’s “Anti-Terrorist Operation”, a savage crackdown on the country’s Russian-speaking population. He also instituted moves to integrate Kiev into NATO defence and security structures, in advance of formal membership. While Parubiy initially retained his position under elected, far-right President Petro Poroshenko, he resigned in August 2014 after the Minsk Agreements intended to achieve peace in Donbass were signed, believing the dispute could only be resolved via “force”.

Parubiy’s bellicosity greatly intensified when the proxy war erupted in February 2022. During the conflict’s early days, he vigorously argued against negotiating with Moscow, instead urging that Kiev “destroy the Russian Empire.” In the meantime, the Maidan massacre officially remained unsolved. This deficiency was so marked, suspicion abounded even among Ukrainian investigators official probes into the killings were being deliberately sabotaged. There were certainly many powerful figures within the country who wanted the truth obscured and buried – Andriy Parubiy perhaps foremost among them.

‘Sacred Victims’

In October 2023, a Kiev court finally made a ruling on the Maidan massacre, in a trial that began in 2016. Of five police officers accused of complicity in the atrocity, one was acquitted outright, another sentenced to time served for alleged “abuse of power”, while three were convicted in absentia on 31 counts of murder and 44 counts of attempted murder. In effect, no Ukrainian official from the time has ever been in any way legally punished over the incident. The ruling also acknowledged there was no evidence of an order to shoot protesters being given by any state source.

Furthermore, the verdict conclusively ruled out involvement of Russian elements in the mass shooting – a conspiracy theory promoted heavily by pro-Maidan elements for many years, including Parubiy. Even more significantly, in at least 28 of the 128 shootings of protesters evaluated during the trial, the court found the “involvement of law enforcement officers has not been proven,” and the involvement of “other unknown persons” in the killings “cannot be ruled out.” Which is an extraordinary understatement.

The verdict noted “quite sufficient” evidence indicated “categorically” many shots were fired at protesters from Freedom Square’s Hotel Ukraina, which was “territory…not controlled by law enforcement agencies.” Unmentioned in the judgment, Hotel Ukraina was used as a headquarters by Svoboda throughout the Maidan unrest, its leaders – including Parubiy – coordinating chaos on the streets below. Many Svoboda operatives were based on the hotel’s 11th floor. Snipers in this vicinity were observed by numerous sources, including the BBC.

However, copious witness evidence heard throughout the longrunning trial indicated Hotel Ukraina was not the sole building or area from which protesters were shot, proven to be occupied by Maidan activists – not government forces – at the time. Of particular note was the testimony of Nazar Mukhachov, a Maidan Self-Defense commander and adviser to Parubiy. He gained access to government-collected evidence related to the massacre, and conducted his own investigation.

The results of Mukhachov’s probe into the mass killing amply indicated “third forces” linked to the Maidan leadership were responsible for shooting both protesters and police, from sites – including Hotel Ukraina – occupied by opposition elements. He concluded Parubiy et al required “sacred victims” in order to topple the government. Mukhachov’s account is especially forceful and persuasive, given his Maidan Self-Defense position, continued support for the Maidan coup, and enduring, committed ultranationalism.

Meanwhile, Stanyslav Shuliak, a riot police commander during the Maidan protests, recorded how numerous officers observed snipers shooting from Maidan-controlled locations. Resultantly, security services negotiated with Maidan Self-Defense representatives to investigate these areas, but Parubiy denied their requests. Even more damningly, numerous witnesses – including members of Right Sector – testified to catching armed individuals known or suspected to have shot at protesters during the massacre. After capture, they were handed over to Parubiy’s Maidan Self-Defense – only to be released without consequence or explanation, and never seen again.

‘A Corpse’

In the immediate aftermath of Parubiy’s death, popular Ukrainian news outlet Strana interviewed a number of his associates. Intriguingly, while most blamed the “hand of the Kremlin” for his liquidation, others “[did] not exclude the internal political background of the murder.” Namely, Parubiy may have been rubbed out due to “expectations of some future political upheaval in the country.” After all, as an anonymous source told Strana, “Andrei knew well how to arrange a Maidan.”

The threat of impending “political upheaval” in Ukraine is very real. Every day, Moscow’s forces relentlessly advance in Donbass. Vast casualties, desertion and failed recruitment drives mean Kiev’s manpower shortage is so dire women – some of them pregnant – now fill frontline combat roles. Europe has been reduced to buying weapons from Washington to equip their failing proxy, while Donald Trump has firmly vetoed NATO membership, or the return of lost territory. For some time, the war has unambiguously been over for Kiev.

Despite this, President Volodomyr Zelensky remains publicly committed to maximalist – and wholly unattainable – battlefield goals, including recapturing Crimea. He has strong grounds for maintaining this farcical facade publicly. In July, Zelensky’s attempt to take US-run “anti-corruption” bodies under his government’s direct control sparked mass protests, demands for his resignation from even his strongest Western supporters, and vitriolic condemnation from powerful elements within the country. Among the loudest voices was Andriy Biletsky, founder of the notorious Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. 

In an August interview with The Times, Biletsky repeatedly criticised Zelensky and flatly rejected any negotiation with Russia, outlining a personal “vision for the future” for perpetual war with Moscow, in which Ukraine became a “permanently militarised society” and Europe’s “army and arsenal.” His comments were echoed mere days later in an almost identical puff piece by the same outlet, in which popular YouTuber and former head of Right Sector’s Odessa branch Serhii Sternenko openly threatened the Ukrainian President’s life:

“If…Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse – politically, and then for real. It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it…At the end there will only be one victor, Russia or Ukraine…If the Russian empire continues to exist in this present form then it will always want to expand. Compromise is impossible. The struggle will be eternal until the moment Russia leaves Ukrainian land.”

Sternenko was centrally involved in the May 2014 Odessa massacre, which killed dozens of anti-Maidan activists and injured hundreds more. Another key Right Sector figure implicated in that hideous incident was Demyan Hanul, assassinated in March. The fascist paramilitary group contemporanously described the slaughter as a “bright page of our national history.” In advance, Andriy Parubiy and 500 members of his Maidan Self-Defense were deployed to the city, strongly suggesting the industrial scale incineration of Ukrainian Russian-speakers was a premeditated, intentional act of mass murder.

In the Odessa inferno’s wake, prominent Svoboda representative Iryna Farion – whose room in Hotel Ukraina served as a sniper’s nest during the Maidan massacre – cheered the fiery carnage, declaring “let the devils burn in hell…Bravo!” She herself was murdered in July 2024, despite being under intensive SBU surveillance. It’s quite some coincidence that, as the walls close in on Zelensky, individuals who can testify most potently to the events that brought the Maidan regime into being are dropping like flies.

---