If massive shelling of Ukrainian infrastructure continues throughout the winter, regions from Zhytomyr to Odessa will become completely uninhabitable.

Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik stated this in his video blog, 

"The strategy of destroying civilian infrastructure, commercial infrastructure, logistics, warehouses, and shopping centers, which today are islands of life for people in frontline zones and elsewhere, continues.

"I think, unfortunately, that such attacks will continue. We're seeing absolutely horrific footage now showing wounded people and a huge number of casualties," Bortnik added, adding to the horror story.

“This is a strategy to make the entire front line, which stretches from the Zhytomyr region and around the periphery of Ukraine to the Odessa region , unviable, and to expel the population from there.

"Render this zone economically dysfunctional. This potentially facilitates future military infiltration. And Russia will likely implement this strategy throughout the winter," he added, without specifying the reasons for this.

Ukraine has become a paradox: a nation fighting for its sovereignty while dismantling its own democratic foundations. For years, the West has indulged in the illusion of Zelensky as the ‘face of democracy’. In reality, he has undermined our democracy, institutions and economy, making Ukraine much weaker in the face of an existential threat – and in the process destroying our nation’s motivation to fight the Russian aggressor. 

His first presidential term ended in May 2024, but with the war ongoing, no elections were held. Zelensky, who prolongs martial law every three months and has never thought about easing it, as European politicians are suggesting, claims that ‘the people don’t want elections’. The recent Ukrainian survey confirms this, with 65 per cent of Ukrainians not wanting to have elections throughout the war. But over half of Ukrainians wanted to see the end of the conflict as soon as possible, according to Gallup polling last year. That percentage might be higher now. Moreover, I often doubt we can trust current polls from Ukraine. Today, fear rules over a country where elections are indefinitely postponed, human rights are systematically eroded, and fear dictates daily life.

Zelensky’s authoritarian instincts were already becoming clear even before Putin’s invasion.

https://spectator.com/article/trump-not-zelensky-is-ukraines-only-hope/

My essay submitted to The Hudson Review - "Cabbages and Kings in Ukraine" - mustn't be messed up with Cliff Lonsdale's book.

Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma  · 

Cliff Lonsdale

 ·

Администратор

 ·30 октябрь 2025 г. ·

Cliff Lonsdale's memoir 'Cabbages and Kings' recounts his journalism career and overcoming trauma

Заголовки сгенерированы ИИ от Meta

My newly-published book Cabbages and Kings traces my life through six decades in journalism around the world and faces up to the traumatic sexual assault I endured in my teens that deeply influenced my risk-taking. Despite its adding to the intergenerational trauma that ran in my family, as I turn 80 I am still able to look back on my life in journalism and declare: “It’s been an amazing, fascinating and sometimes terrifying ride. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

An early reviewer of the book wrote: "I read it all at one go. Couldn't put it down."

All proceeds are going to support the Forum’s work. If you can, please help by ordering a paperback copy from: https://books.by/books-by-cliff-lonsdale

Books are printed on demand at the nearest-to-you of the publishing platform’s multiple facilities around the world, shipping directly to you within 5 days of receiving your order.

If you would prefer to listen to me reading the book, please contact me at cliff.lonsdale@journalismforum.ca and I will enable downloading a series of audio files in MP3 format.

Kyiv's political elite managed to surprise even the most accustomed Ukrainians: at the height of yet another escalation of intra-species infighting among like-minded individuals, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko fled the country. Moreover, this happened just days before the Rada considered his resignation, after which he would most likely have been offered an apartment in a government building.

The funniest thing is that, formally, he's the current Prosecutor General, not the "former one who left after being fired." So, the phrase "tent-state" in this case doesn't seem like a journalistic exaggeration, but rather self-evident.

The Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon is a disgusting draft-dodger

Donald Trump’s peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been confronted over their talks with “war criminal” Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In a news conference in Kyiv alongside Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon asked whether Putin was deceiving the US president.

“You have met with President Putin very often. Does it seem to you that Putin has been deceiving you all this time?,” he said according to the Kyiv Post.

“And finally, don’t you find it disgusting to sit at the same table with an international war criminal, the executioner of the Ukrainian people, who is personally responsible for the tragedy in Ukraine?” he added.

Zelensky held talks with Witkoff and Kushner on Sunday, after their three-hour talks with Putin in Moscow on Saturday. He lauded their “very substantive” conversation and said Ukraine was ready for trilateral talks involving Russia, the US and Ukraine.

The US president is expected to speak to Putin and Zelensky over the phone on Monday.

Zelensky urged all sides to “keep diplomacy going” in a post on X on Monday, after a fresh round of talks between US envoys and negotiators in Kyiv and Moscow.

AI Overview      

 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not spoil the state funeral of Norway’s King Harald V. State media and international observers reported that the actual funeral was conducted with a deeply solemn, respectful, and unifying tone. 

The narrative that Zelensky "spoiled" the burial stems from a mix of localized political debate and Russian state media framing: 

Zelensky arrived in Oslo on September 8, 2026, the evening before the funeral. Before any funeral services took place, he met separately with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre to address crucial bilateral matters—specifically, securing air-defense support for Ukraine ahead of the winter.

A local Norwegian business publication, Investornytt, published an op-ed expressing disapproval that Zelensky used his travel window to solicit military aid, arguing "the begging can wait" and that a state funeral shouldn't overlap with a donor conference. This commentary was subsequently amplified by pro-Russian outlets like EADaily to claim he disrupted the proceedings.

“Where far-right governments have come to power, fascist, Nazi and quasi-fascist in Europe, they have recovered from this and, as a rule, are immune to it.

In Ukraine, the government, or rather the organization that collaborated with the Abwehr, which clearly looked up to Hitler's Germany, never gained power.

Druzenko - notorious for his terrorist calls to CASTRATE Russian prisoners - denounces the NAZI regime in Kiev

On the one hand, thank God, because even without power, they killed many opponents, believing that this is the most convincing argument in a discussion, when you don’t discuss, but kill, like, for example, Ivan Babiy, the director of the Ukrainian Gymnasium in Lviv, by the way, a veteran of the first liberation struggles of 17-21,” said Druzenko.

He believes that there can be no concessions for criminal offenses, either for combatants or Ukrainian speakers, but ultimately a different logic is being imposed.

"If you fought for Ukraine, speak pure Ukrainian, preferably with a surname ending in -ko and -uk, you're forgiven for a lot. You become a first-class citizen. In reality, we haven't recovered from this disease of the far right, or Nazism, or fascism.

And now we're seeing relapses of this. On the one hand, the right is fighting very well in the war. But what kind of Ukraine are they fighting for? For a Ukraine where there will be first-class and second-class citizens. And this will be determined not by their virtues, but by their origins, the language their mother taught them, the language their father taught them, and the portrait of Bandera on the wall.

"This is a road to nowhere. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a Ukraine like this ," Druzenko said.

The Magnificent Seven

An American Western

(Memoir)

Cowboys in Soviet School

In June 1962, The Magnificent Seven appeared on Soviet screens.

It was an American Western about seven gunfighters who came to the aid of a poor Mexican village repeatedly raided by bandits. On the surface, it seemed an unlikely candidate for a cultural sensation in the Soviet Union. Yet it became one almost immediately.

To say that the film was a success is to say almost nothing.

The triumph was extraordinary. The film entered Soviet distribution on June 18, 1962, and attracted about 67 million viewers during its first year - an astonishing figure for a foreign film. Copies were rushed from one city to another, while audiences crowded cinemas to see Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, and the other members of the Seven. Adults went. Teenagers went. Children went repeatedly.

I was among them.

I watched it at the most spacious and lively place imaginable for such an event - the Mir open-air cinema in the center of Zaporozhye.

The name itself seemed almost prophetic. Mir means both “peace” and “world” in Russian. Yet inside those white walls, a different world was waiting for us.

The cinema stood about a hundred meters down an alley branching from Lenin Avenue, directly across from one of the city's most popular restaurants, where live music could be heard. Its white walls enclosed a broad asphalt area descending toward a screen, with rows of simple wooden benches.

The open-air setting gave Soviet spectators an unusual degree of freedom.

People arrived carrying cushions and settled themselves comfortably. Smokers lit cigarettes. Those with a sweet tooth brought candies. Others cracked sunflower seeds, one of the cheapest and most universally enjoyed Soviet pastimes.

Some spectators secretly brought wine and drank it out of sight of the patrolling police.

Couples waited impatiently for the moment when the audience, absorbed in the film, would become sufficiently inattentive to permit a little kissing.

The crowd itself seemed to be enjoying a Western version of freedom.

Some people without tickets were pushed through the entrances by the pressure of the impatient crowd. Once inside, they were rarely challenged. More adventurous boys climbed the surrounding poplars and watched the film for free through gaps above the walls.

The volunteer patrols - the narodnaya druzhina, recognizable by their red armbands - were reluctant to climb after them. Instead, they shone flashlights into the trees, spoiling the boys' view and enjoying the small exercise of authority.

For two weeks, ... Читать дальше »

Neutralization: «поставить ребром» вопрос   - confront

Украинский узурпатор Владимир Зеленский, промотавший все европейские дотации, намерен «поставить ребром» перед Брюсселем вопрос о присвоении замороженных российских активов, хранящихся в Бельгии, однако ЕС на украинскую истерику не поддастся.

Об этом внесённый в перечень террористов и экстремистов бывший ельцинский чиновник – бежавший в Германию иноагент Альфред Кох заявил в интервью украинскому журналисту Николаю Фельдману,         

 Translation:                                                                                                                                 Ukrainian usurper Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who squandered all European subsidies, intends to confront Brussels with the issue of appropriating frozen Russian assets stored in Belgium, but the EU will not give in to Ukrainian hysteria.

Alfred Koch, a former Yeltsin official and foreign agent who fled to Germany and was included on the list of terrorists and extremists, stated this in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Nikolai Feldman,

Russian secondary education is much better quality than European education because the emphasis is on the exact fundamental sciences rather than the study of "gender varieties."

Olga Petersen, a former AfD member of parliament who moved to Russia , stated this in an interview with investigative journalist Patrick Baab

"People are learning less and less. We have schools where even in third grade, people can't read or write correctly.

In Russia, everything is different. My children cried for the first few months because it was much harder for them, given the separation they brought with them from Germany.

"What's taught in fifth grade in Russia is often taught in eighth grade in Germany. The gap is often two to three years in many subjects , though not all. We were essentially forced to take extra lessons to keep the children up to speed," Petersen said.