Were the events of August of 1991 a coup d’état?

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Can the events that took place on August 19–21, 1991, be called a coup d’état? And why did the coup plotters lose so quickly? Maxim Artemyev, the author of the book “The Gekachepists”, a historian and journalist reflects on this in an interview with the “Historian” magazine in a conversation with Arseny Zamostyanov. July, 2021

This was perhaps the most striking and dramatic event of the turbulent perestroika period. Top leaders of the state removed Mikhail Gorbachev, the current president of the USSR, from power and declared a state of emergency. Armoured personnel carriers on Moscow’s pavements and barricades around the residence of the President and government of the RSFSR, the White House, became symbols of the confrontation that took to the streets. However, a few days later, the political fiesta ended with the unexpectedly rapid surrender of the Emergency Committee and crowded rallies, where supporters of the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, who initially called the actions of the Emergency Committee a “right-wing reactionary unconstitutional coup”, noisily celebrated the victory. Three days of “great upheavals”, which effectively became a fleeting epilogue to the entire history of the Soviet Union.

The actions of the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) are now perceived by many primarily as a gesture of desperation, doomed to failure from the outset. To this day, heated debates continue about the events of those three days. Indeed, what was it? An inept attempt to impose a harsh, semi‑military dictatorship on the country, or the last chance to save the Soviet Union? Maxim Artemyev has his own answer to this question. The biographer of the GKChP members generally believes that “their actions can be studied as a guide on how not to stage a coup”. However, Artemyev believes that the failure of the August coup is a verdict on the entire late‑Soviet elite, which by that time had already proven to be “too weak‑willed and uncompetitive”.

Press conference of the State Committee on the State of Emergency. From left to right: Alexander Tizyakov, Vasily Starodubtsev, Boris Pugo, Gennady Yanayev, and Oleg Baklanov. August 19, 1991

Was There a Coup?

– Do you consider the GKChP’s actions to be a state coup?

– I think that’s too strong a formulation. The events related to the creation and collapse of the State Emergency Committee are unique, and it is difficult to find an adequate definition for them. A coup or a coup d’etat is, as a rule, an action against the current government, while all the participants in the Emergency Committee themselves were members of the ruling elite of the Soviet Union. Head of Government and Vice-President, Chairman of the KGB, Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs…

– But they still isolated their boss, the President of the USSR…

– Please note that they constantly emphasised that Gorbachev was only temporarily unable to fulfil the duties of the President of the USSR due to his health condition. And Gennady Yanayev, at the famous press conference on August 19, kept insisting that Mikhail Sergeyevich was simply tired and, once he recovered, he would definitely return to fulfilling his duties. And it’s hardly possible to speak of complete isolation. Gorbachev simply made no attempts to leave Foros. It’s unlikely that the guards would have refused to carry out his orders if the president had decided to rush to Moscow in a hurry. According to many participants of those events (including Boris Yeltsin), Gorbachev was waiting in those days to see who would prevail and was in a kind of self‑imposed isolation. It is noteworthy that the GKChP’s appeal “To the Soviet People” contains no criticism of Gorbachev, and the only “dark forces” mentioned are nameless “extremists”, who are hard to equate with the President of the USSR.

– The main mystery surrounding the August events remains the question to which different memoirists and researchers give contradictory answers: was the “GKChP” project a surprise to Mikhail Gorbachev?

– Let’s put it this way: events took an unexpected turn for him. Gorbachev was preparing in Foros to sign the Union Treaty, which he regarded as his tactical success. The signing ceremony was scheduled for August 20. But the ideas that the GKChP relied on were up in the air. It is enough to recall Alexander Kabakov’s popular story “The Defector”, which, after the August events, was seen as a prediction of the so‑called coup. Or the popular leaflets that were distributed at democratic rallies in 1990 and early 1991: one of the most popular slogans was “Let’s not allow the revenge of the apparatus!” Society was so often spooked up by the advance of “anti‑perestroika forces” that it began to resemble the well‑known parable about the boy who jokingly shouted: “Wolves! Wolves!”, and when the real wolves appeared, no one believed him. So many perceived the GKCHP’s speech as a kind of apparatus revenge attempt, an attempt to “undo the changes”. Of course, Gorbachev was aware of the position of his conservative–minded colleagues, perhaps he considered them a counterweight to the radical Democrats, while he saw his line as centrist. At the same time, he was shocked that people who owed him everything had acted without his knowledge.
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“Mission to Moscow” – The Two Missions of Joseph Davies

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Yesterday we presented at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” the 1943 film “Mission to Moscow”, along with the contemporary Soviet review. We are bringing this review here, followed by a translation of one chapter, speaking of the book and how the film came to be, titled “The Two Missions of Joseph Davies” from a book by Lev Ashotovich Balayan, simply called “Stalin”.

The following review, written by N.Krugkov was published in the Soviet Red Army newspaper “Red Star” on July 30, 1943. The film in question is possibly one of the two truthful films about the USSR, coming from Hollywood, the other one being “Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia”.

«Mission to Moscow»

A new American film

Mr. Davies, the former United States Ambassador to our country, has published a book called “Mission to Moscow”. The book was a great success. It described the events leading up to the war in the language of facts and documents. The factual nature of the book, written with a sharp pen of a publicist, created its success. For the American reader, who was poorly informed about the USSR and European affairs, Davies’ book was in many ways a revelation.

Director Michael Curtiz created a movie based on the book by Joseph Davis. Of course, it was not an easy task. Davies’ book, which is a political document, did not pretend to be artistic in its presentation, it is entirely factual, and seemingly plotless. However, the events described in it are so dramatic, so close to us, people experiencing the storms and tempests of the World War, that they fit neatly within the script and allowed to create a film that makes a great impression.

Of course, to us, the Soviet people, a lot of things in the picture seem naive and sometimes even funny. Russia, apparently, remains an exotic country in the eyes of Americans, and the desire to convey to the viewer the uniqueness of the country clearly dominates the direction.

Therefore, the film carefully emphasises the shots designed, according to the authors, to show Russian exoticism. Of course, the film features a mighty-sized samovar, some bearded people dancing “hopak” at a skating rink, a sled painted with flowers, and so on. All this makes our audience smile involuntarily. But at the same time, we see the efforts of the film’s authors to show our factories built during Stalin’s five-year plans, our endless collective farm fields and our new people — energetic and courageous builders and creators of a new life.

J. Davis went to Germany before coming to the USSR. He saw the stupid German military, heard the roar of drums, the incessant brass roar of military marches, children beating the goose step, a rampant, muzzled Germany, a country where preparations for war were going on at a furious pace, where everything was trembling under Hitler’s heel.

— Tin soldiers, he said of the Germans.

And so he crossed the border: a new world, the USSR. The lively people, the ease of communication, the smiles on their faces, even the air was different, clean and fresh, and the Americans who arrived immediately felt free and simple.

This noticeable difference between the two countries is perfectly captured in the picture.

The Soviet and foreign chronicles abundantly presented in the film give the picture a documentary character, making up for what could not be done in the studio, making you feel the pulse of authentic life.

The film says: The USSR is a great country, inspired by high common and social ideals, inhabited by courageous, energetic and talented people.

The film shows political figures of the USSR and other countries. The direction did not achieve an exact similarity of images — neither in external nor in internal expression. It was satisfied with the conditional similarity, the sketchy outlines. However, even actor Walter Huston, who plays the role of Davis, did not strive to accurately reproduce the image of his character.

Some events in the film are shifted in time, apparently in order to develop the plot more dynamically, but this does not deprive the film of truthfulness, because it is based on actual facts, real events.

We see and feel the ardent desire of the film’s authors to honestly comprehend and reflect the life of our fatherland — they have succeeded in many things, some have failed — but in any case, we can rightfully say: This is the voice of our overseas friends.

The Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the Hitlerite horde that threatened to incinerate the whole world, attracted the sympathies of all advanced humanity with its courageous struggle. America, which is fighting alongside us, has feelings of recognition and respect for the Soviet people. The film “Mission to Moscow” expresses these feelings.

You are about to read a chapter from Lev Ashotovich Balayan’s book “Stalin”. After Lev Balayan’s passing, the book was made public domain by his son, Yan Bayalan, at the site stalin.su between 2003 and 2015. The site itself is now available through the WebArchive. The book can also be found at LitLife Club.

The Two Missions of Joseph Davies

The bestseller of the 40s

Davies and Stalin in May of 1943

At the end of 1941, Joseph Davies’s book “Mission to Moscow” was published in the United States of America. This man was the US ambassador to the USSR, or rather, Franklin Roosevelt’s personal envoy to the Soviet capital, where he arrived with a very specific mission: to obtain an audience with Stalin, to deeply study and analyse the internal political situation in the Soviet Union and its foreign policy, as well as to gather information on the defence capability of our country. Davies’s work as U.S. Ambassador to the USSR lasted from January 1937 to the spring of 1938, that is it fell on the peak of “political repression”, and therefore F.Roosevelt’s personal envoy and his testimonies about the events that took place at that time, as well as his book itself, are of great interest. It is not for nothing that President Roosevelt left this inscription on his personal copy of the “Mission to Moscow: “This book is a phenomenon, it is for all times.”
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Fritzes of This Summer

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Before you is the first part of an article written by Ilya Ehrenburg, and published in “Red Star” on July 30, 1943.

The face of fascism never changes, nor its dynamics. Today, totally mobilised Ukrainians are in the same shape and form as the “Total Fritzes”, the brainwashed youths of Ukraine are just as brainwashed as were their German predecessors. And Tigers… where are the vaunted Leopard II and Challengers, that were supposed to have become the “game-changers”? Article first translated to “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Voluntarily mobilised Ukrainians are being sent to the front in a fully demoncratic fashion.

“Tigers” and Germans, who were conscripted into military service in February-March of this year on “total mobilisation”, are the highlights of the German season.

“Tigers” have been described more than once. I will try to describe the Total Fritzes. I saw them coming out of the woods, raising their hands in the air. I talked to them before they had time to put their feelings in order and find decent formulations. Total Fritzes were the last to arrive at the front, but they are the first to surrender.

In 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels cried for “Total War” and “Total Mobilisation”.
Here, Adolf Hitler is “vacuuming” the streets of Germany in search of fresh soldiers, as so aptly depicted by the Soviet artist Boris Yefimov.
The non-elected puppet Führer of Ukraine, Volodomyr Zelensky, is now doing the same thing 80 years later to provide fresh cannon fodder for his western masters.
Source: Beorn And The Shieldmaiden

Here’s a middle-aged, sad German. The military uniform does not give him a military appearance. Until March, Heinrich Sturman lived in Emden and was considered “irreplaceable”. But the Germans are masters at substitutions: a French prisoner of war replaced Heinrich Sturman. The latter was sent to the marching battalion. The training lasted two months. Heinrich Sturman learned how to shoot a rifle. He did not venture close to either a machine gun or a mortar. On July 14, he arrived at the front line. The day was quite noisy, and the music unpleasantly surprised the Total Fritz. However, even in Emden he had become unaccustomed to silence. He says that three-quarters of his city was destroyed by British bombs, but he adds: “But there were shelters there after all…” And here Heinrich Sturman found himself in a field. He climbed into a small hole. From the excess of impressions, he fell ill with dysentery. He sat in the hole, not moving, for two days. Our fighters had gone past him a long time ago, and Total Fritz was still squatting. He was discovered by our signalmen.

I’ve seen a lot of such warriors. The harvest of total mobilisation gave Hitler very mediocre soldiers. Here they are both weak-witted, and blind-sighted, and fingerless. Forty-year-old Fritzes are not suitable for the “eastern campaign”. These are mostly asthmatic, hemorrhoidal, gouty townspeople. They were afraid to sit on the grass in a German park, so as not to catch a cold. It is easy to imagine what they are going through in the Bryansk forests.

Total Fritzes are poorly trained. In the diary of the commander of the 32nd sapper battalion, Gerhardt, whom I mentioned, there is the following assessment of the replenishment: “The marching battalion is indescribably bad. They have no bearing, and they don’t understand anything.”
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«Fritz in Russia»

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A caricature series by Boris Yefimov from the 1943 book “Hitler and His Pack”. The series consists of 12 frames and covers the first year of Fritz’ stay in Russia. First published at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Let’s take a closer look at each frame!


1.
— Dear Martha, I’m not saying good-bye, because I’m going to come back in a month. The Fuhrer said that the war would last three weeks. I’ll spend a week in Moscow shops, and then head right back home…
— See you soon, Fritz!.. Remember that the size of my shoes is 38…



2.
— Dear Martha! Russians are a dark and uncultured people who do not know foreign languages. Judging by yesterday, they simply did not read Goebbels’ statement that they no longer have airplanes, guns and tanks… Your Fritz. July 1941.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

🦇 At this point we had to take a break for laughing, as the second frame came to us in Ursula von der Lying’s voice of 2022…

⚡️⚡️⚡️

“Tomorrow we will be corpses”
— A German testimony from an article in Historian Magazine.

General Günther Blumentritt, who in 1941 was chief of staff of the 4th Infantry Army, recalled after the war:

“With astonishment and disappointment, we watched the Russians in late October and early November, realising that they did not seem to care that their main forces had been defeated. During these weeks, the enemy’s resistance only intensified, and the battles became more fierce with each passing day.”



3.
— The weather is hot here. An athlete has awakened in me, and sometimes I run at night, on both short and long distances.… It’s called a marathon steeplechase and without pants. Your Fritz. August 1941.



4.
— Yesterday, I participated in a very fierce attack. Be calm, Martha, your Fritz remains unharmed. If you could have heard how our enemies were running around, how they were trying in vain to get into the air, how I grabbed my opponent along with the guano… that is, with a gun… Your brave husband Fritz. September 1941.


5.
…Russian nature is very picturesque. I am writing to you, sitting in a large birch grove. Many of my friends liked this place so much that they decided to stay here permanently… Fritz. October 1941.


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Fritz the Forerunner

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Before you is an article by Ilya Ehrenburg, published in “Red Star” on August 11, 1943.

The Fritzes who came to us for the “living space” had a forerunner. I have before me a work by Professor Karl Jentsch called “Neither Communism nor Capitalism” (“Weder Kommunismus Noch Kapitalismus”). This book was published in Leipzig in 1893, and the Fritzes can celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its publication.

The professor liked to speak bluntly. He begins his opus with the question: “Where does the land for our colonisation lie?” Having learned that the Germans are “cramped in Germany,” Karl Jentsch exclaims indignantly: “The number of Russians is enormous, while their morals are at a very low level”. Therefore, “the scientist” offers the Germans the best way out: “Russia is for us what the lands of the Slavs east of the Inn and the Elbe were for our ancestors, that is, a country designed by nature for our colonisation”.

The possessed Fuhrer was four years old at the time, and his forerunner was already developing a detailed plan for the “colonisation of Russia”. Karl Jentsch wrote that in the new colony “some will be masters, others slaves”. Long before the rogue Rosenberg, the rogue Jentsch calmly assured that “the Germans bring culture to the Russian barbarians” and that “there is no intelligentsia in Russia.” Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, Mendeleev, Mechnikov, Sechenov lived and worked then, and the quasy-scientist Karl Jentsch smugly said that it was necessary to “send ten million Germans to Russia in order to enlighten this country”.

There were no planes or tanks yet, and Fritz the forerunner limited his projects to artillery. He wrote: “Why turn guns against our brothers, the German unemployed, when it is possible to conquer new spaces and untold riches?” Anticipating the “racial theory”, Karl Jentsch is not satisfied with the ears of the Russians. The spiritual father of Ribbentrop and Hess writes: “The first task of diplomacy is to raise and direct the whole of Europe against Russia”.

The book by Karl Jentsch ends with the call: “We need to act! The land we need will not grow by itself for us, it will have to be conquered”.

As you know, since then the Germans have twice tried to capture Russia. The rough rehearsal was conducted by the Kaiser. The Germans frolicked in the Ukraine for a while. Returning to their Swinemunde and Schweinfurths, they caught their breath and began to prepare for a decisive campaign.

The possessed one fulfilled Professor Jentsch’s dream: ten million Fritzes were sent to Russia. Colonisation has begun. But the cultural traders were in for an unpleasant surprise: the Red Army intervened in their plans. Where is the Chief Governor of the Caucasus? Where is Rostov’s advisor for commerce? Where is the Herr Commandant of Oryol? Running away, they lost not only guns and slippers, but even the scientific work of their great-grandfather Karl Jentsch.

We will remember everything: the ashes of Oryol, and the vile writings of the Leipzig professor. Don’t let them say that Hitler fell from the sky. Don’t let them blame everything on one crippled man. Jentsch lived before the crooked one. Before Hitler, they were already thinking about how to colonise Russia. It was no accident that they burned Yasnaya Polyana and the Turgenev Museum in Oryol. They’ve been dreaming about this for half a century now. They will not be able to present in a difficult moment that Hitler has “retired” and that the non-commissioned Hitlers are as pure as Easter lambs. It is necessary to rip out the snake’s sting once and for all. We need to show them that the Russian land, awakened by the invaders, gets up, goes on and punishes. The Fritzes had forerunners. But we swear over the ashes of our cities that there will be no Fritz students.

🦇 Alas, there came von der Leyens and Merkels and Merzes…

Ukraine war as planned in 2019 RAND Corporation papers

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The article is a overview of the RAND Corporation paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia. Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options. Nonviolent Ways the United States Could Exploit Russian Vulnerabilities”. The overview was written by Robin Stowe and appeared on several social media outlets, for example at Live Journal (https://oboguev.livejournal.com/8123922.html) (in both English and Russian). If only RAND Corporation instead created papers with titles like “Cooperating with Russia for the betterment of humanity”…

Kudos to Russian Baza for bringing discovering the overview last year. Overview is also available at our Telegram channel.

If you still think the war in Ukraine wasn’t premeditated – read this: a U.S. blueprint to drag Russia into a costly war, published by RAND Corporation in April 2019.

RAND isn’t a blog or a fringe group, it’s an official, state-funded think tank that advises the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, and NATO.

It designs wars, regime change and psychological warfare. RAND turns U.S. power into global control.

What the document says (verbatim):

“The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose… Rather, they are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, causing Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage.”

Translation: how to push Russia into costly traps.

1. Fueling war in Ukraine:

“Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability.”

Translation: Arm Ukraine to provoke a Russian military response – and trap Moscow in a costly, prolonged conflict.

2. Economic warfare:

“Increasing sanctions and expanding U.S. energy production could harm Russia’s economy.”

Translation: Strangle Russia’s economy through sanctions while flooding the global market with American oil and gas to undercut Russian exports.

3. Destabilising from within:

“Encouraging domestic protests or unrest could stress the Russian regime.”
“Diminishing Russian influence in Syria could undermine its foreign policy goals and prestige.”

Translation: Use protests, dissent, and foreign policy setbacks to weaken the Russian government from the inside out.

4. Cutting Russia off from Europe:

“Reducing Russian gas exports by encouraging European energy diversification would hurt the Russian economy.”

Translation: Convince Europe to cut off Russian gas – crash one of Russia’s largest income streams.

5. Stretching Russia Thin in Syria

“Increasing support to Syrian rebels could jeopardize other U.S. policy priorities… but might raise costs for Russia.”

Translation: Arm and fund militants in Syria – make it harder and costlier for Russia to stabilize Assad’s government.
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Heirs of Goebbels: Falsification of the Events in Bucha and Bloody Staged Performances of the Kiev Regime

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⚡️ The International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis has published a report “Heirs of Goebbels: Falsification of the Events in Bucha and Bloody Staged Performances of the Kiev Regime”, presenting its findings on the Bucha hoax, and how the Kiev regime and its Western sponsors through mainstream media support falsified the events of what occurred in Bucha in 2022. The report is available in English as a PDF file at the site of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Tribunal brings together civil society representatives from 35 countries. Drawing on Ukrainian media reports, memorial records and eyewitness testimony, the publication debunks the claim that the individuals commemorated at the Bucha memorial were civilians killed by Russia’s Armed Forces.

Key findings:

▪️ Military personnel presented as civilian victims

The report identifies Ukrainian servicemen and combatants listed among the memorial’s “civilian victims”.

Examples include Evgeny Petrash, a serviceman of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion; Andrey Vaskevich, an Azov company commander; Ruslan Belous and Roman Dovgalyuk, military pilots whose aircraft was downed near Berezovka. Other entries include a sniper of Ukraine’s 80th separate air assault brigade Oleg Tsimbal, members of territorial defence units, airborne formations and military intelligence.

▪️ Discrepancies in the location and cause of death

A number of people commemorated at the Bucha memorial died elsewhere. Ukrainian sources place the deaths of a number of servicemen near Vorzel, Moshchun, Kopylov and other settlements.

The report also cites 68-year-old Galina Semenyuk, who died of cancer but somehow appears on the memorial. Such cases highlight the need to establish each person’s circumstances of death before presenting the entire list as “civilian victims killed by the Russian military”.

▪️ Witness accounts of shelling and manipulated coverage

The publication includes 16 witness accounts from Avdeevka, Ugledar, Dzerzhinsk and other towns and cities. Witnesses recount Ukrainian attacks on residential areas followed by the arrival of journalists, coverage blaming Russia, and pressure on residents to repeat that account.

***

The Tribunal’s conclusion is unequivocal: the material it has collected points to blatant falsification of events in Bucha by the Kiev regime with Western support, alongside a broader practice of killing civilians to produce footage blaming Russia.

☝️ The cases presented in this publication form only part of the evidence assembled by the Tribunal.

📄 Full report (PDF)

💬 Excerpts from the opening remarks by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

• Let me stress once again: the Kiev regime’s Western sponsors stood behind this fabrication. They were dissatisfied with the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, which were progressing rapidly towards concrete agreements and an early end to the conflict. These Western countries – and, of course, Britain was at the heart of this little gang – were not merely unhappy with the talks. They needed to derail them, and that is exactly what they did.

• As the political talks were being derailed, dozens of bodies seemingly appeared in Bucha, a suburb of Kiev. What do I mean by “seemingly appeared”? They appeared when the media showed them. The first reports did not come from residents or neighbours unable to find their friends or loved ones at home or worried that they had not heard from them. Nothing of the sort happened. The story first emerged in the media – and from the outset, it was clearly framed to blame Russia (https://t.me/MFARussia/26423).

• Over the years, in various forums, in person and in writing, the Russian Federation repeatedly appealed to the UN Secretary-General. He and his colleagues had visited Bucha on several occasions, at what they described as the crime scene. We demanded lists of the people to whom they had supposedly paid their respects. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres never provided them. Yet he repeatedly claimed – including while looking Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the eye – that an investigation had been conducted and that they held some confidential information. This further convinced us that this was more than a provocation by the Kiev regime – it was a global information campaign.

• The Ukrainian authorities built an entire memorial to what they call the “Bucha massacre”, yet never circulated a list of the victims of this proclaimed “tragedy” on which they had staked so much. The Ukrainian delegation routinely circulated all kinds of material as official documents: photographs, videos, lists and more. Yet in this case, no list was circulated.

❗️ This is unquestionably a fabrication.

📄 Full report (PDF)

The Monastery – A Documentary by Russell ‘Texas’ Bentley. Монастырь – Фильм Рассела “Техаса” Бентли

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January 17th, 2015. Monastery position at Donetsk airport. One of the most legendary battles of the Donbass war, when a small group of soldiers from the separate tactical group “Essence of Time”, which was part of the VOSTOK battalion, repelled the Ukrainian fascist offensive and prevented them from entering Donetsk straight.


Backup at Rumble.

The blood of the fallen calls out to us to remember! Those who are not blind, whose hearts are hot and whose souls are alive, watch the short documentary – “Monastery” – by Russell “Texas” Bentley about this significant battle.

In December 2023 this documentary was awarded a special prize for the “COMMEMORATION OF THE HEROES OF DONBASS” at the ‘Frontline’ Documentary Film and Media Projects Festival in Rostov-on-Don.

👉 Film source and the description at Russell’s Telegram channel.

17 января 2015 год. Позиция на монастыре прямо возле Донецкого аэропорта. Один из самых легендарных боёв в войне на Донбассе, когда малочисленная группа воинов отдельной тактической группы “Суть времени”, входившей в батальон ВОСТОК, отбила наступление укрофашистов и не дала им войти прямо в Донецк, воротами в который являлась эта позиция.

Кровь погибших взывает к нам, чтобы мы помнили! Те, кто не слеп, у кого горит сердце и жива душа, посмотрите короткометражный фильм МОНАСТЫРЬ Рассела “Техаса” Бентли об этом знаменательном бое.

В декабре 2023 года этот фильм был удостоен отдельной награды “ЗА СОХРАНЕНИЕ ПАМЯТИ О ГЕРОЯХ ДОНБАССА” на фестивале документального кино и медиапроектов “Линия фронта” в г. Ростов-на-Дону.

Berlin ’23 – a political thriller with a fragment on the nature of false flags

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Following Warsaw ’21, a fragment of which pertaining the destruction of Soviet WWII memorials in Poland we translated, the Russian on-line cinema “Okko” has released in April of 2026 a new series taking place in Germany: Berlin ’23. The series has English subtitles and is well worth watching.

Plot:
The brilliant diplomat Vyacheslav Vasilyev arrives in Berlin to replace his colleagues who were expelled from Germany, with the aim of restoring the embassy’s operations. He is joined by the experienced operative Sergei Nenashev. Vasilyev must solve the assigned tasks at the highest level, while Nenashev must illegally infiltrate the country to work undercover. According to Russian intelligence, the German Minister of Defense, Becker, is secretly creating special mercenary units to participate in a war against the Russian Federation. Nenashev and Vasilyev must combine their efforts to counter provocations from Western intelligence agencies, expose their conspiracy, and prevent the creation of an alternative front that threatens Russia’s security.

One of the main events in the series is a false flag explosion at a café in Berlin, for which Russia is immediately blamed by the media, while at the same time Russian voice is silenced by the same media.


First published at our Telegram channel “Beorn and the Shirldmaiden”

As a result, Vasilyev has to resort to a public stunt in front of the Reichstag, giving a history lesson about false flags, the Reichstag fire of 1933, and the concept of cui prodest, who benefits — certainty not Russia.

Russian filmmakers did not need a scrying ball to know of a coming Leipzig false flag — all they needed was a solid knowledge of history.

As Vasilyev says:

“History teaches nothing, but punishes for not learning its lessons.”

The series ends on an optimistic note, where Germany sees reason and a chance of not getting dragged into yet another war with Russia.

Does Merz’ Germany have such a chance?

Burning of the Reichstag 1933. Germany / Mono Print

FALSE FLAG METHODOLOGY, THEN AND NOW

– by Beorn And The Shieldmaiden
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Republic of Moldova: 35 Years of Independence – Facts, Chronology, Analysis

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On 27 August, Moldova marks 35 years of existence as an independent state. What kind of state it should be and for whom — that is a question Moldovan society has not resolved and continues to work through. An article by Dmitriy, an admin at “Putinger’s Cat” chat. First published at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Drawing by A. Gorbarukov

I. The Starting Point — The Moldavian SSR

By 1990, the Moldavian SSR was one of the most agriculturally developed republics of the USSR: agricultural output grew 3.7 times faster than the Soviet average, industry exported goods to over 40 countries, and the population stood at 4.36 million. The standard of living was higher than in most Central Asian Soviet republics, but lower than in the Baltic states.

There was one structural weakness, but a fundamental one: the republic had no autonomous economic cycle of its own. Energy, raw materials, markets, the financial system, the military, diplomacy — all were provided from outside. Independence meant that all of this would have to be built from scratch, amid simultaneous economic collapse.

II. Chronology of 35 Years

1991 — Independence and war in the same year. Independence was proclaimed on 27 August. In the same year, armed conflict erupted in Transnistria. The Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking population of the eastern bank of the Dniester refused to recognise Chișinău, backed by the Russian 14th Army stationed in the region. The 1992 ceasefire stopped the fighting but did not resolve the conflict. Approximately 500–1,000 people were killed. Russian troops remain in Transnistria under the 1992 ceasefire agreement, which formalised their presence as a peacekeeping mechanism. Chișinău has consistently sought to replace this format with a civilian OSCE mission; Moscow has blocked this within the “5+2” negotiation framework. Moldova has no practical means of compelling a withdrawal. The 1994 Constitution enshrined the country’s permanent neutrality.
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Commemoration of the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia on 08.08.08.

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First, a fragment of the now-deleted by YouTube video of the Vesti news program from 08.08.2016 commemorating the 8th anniversary of Georgian aggression against South Ossetia. First published at our Telegram channel “Beorn and the Shieldmaiden”.


Backup at Rumble.

Georgian war – FOX news interview
While the Western MSM were pushing the “bad Russia” narrative, an Ossetian girl Amanda, and her aunt would have none of that. So much so, that… a commercial break was needed.

Answers by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev to questions from RIA Novosti on the consequences of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict (August 8, 2026)

❓ Question: In August 2008, Russia’s decision to defend Abkhazia and South Ossetia triggered a sharp negative reaction from Western countries. How important is the opinion of the international community for Russia today?

💬 Dmitry Medvedev: 18 years have passed since the tragic events of August 2008. They remain proof that defending our citizens and our national interests – regardless of the opinion of the so-called international community – is the only right choice.

The decision to defend Abkhazia and South Ossetia caused hysteria in the West. We were branded, threatened with isolation and warned of consequences. Today, we understand that this was a probing move – the first attempt to test Russia’s resilience through a conflict with a neighbouring state.

We passed that test with dignity, giving the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia the opportunity to live and develop in peace. Those who condemned our country most loudly are now unsuccessfully waging war against it by proxy in Ukraine.

When we speak of the opinion of the international community, we need to understand what exactly is meant. If it is the so-called collective West – the US, Europe and a handful of insignificant satellites seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia – then we truly do not care about their opinion.

But there is another international community – the #GlobalMajority: China, India, the countries of the Global South, #BRICS and our partners in the #SCO. Their position matters to us, and we maintain a constructive dialogue with them.

☝️ Ultimately, however, Russia’s national interests come first.

❓ Question: In 2008, France played an effective role in resolving the Georgian–Ossetian crisis. You held direct talks with Sarkozy at the time. Is Western diplomacy still capable of resolving conflicts today, or has it completely lost that function and become capable only of adding fuel to the fire?

💬 Dmitry Medvedev: In 2008, we held direct talks with President Sarkozy, who flew to Moscow – tough, but productive talks – and agreed to end the conflict on Russia’s terms and in the interests of the affected Republics. At the time, France played a constructive role in resolving the Georgian–Ossetian conflict.

❗️ Today, Western diplomacy has completely discredited itself as an instrument for resolving political crises.

The Minsk Agreements are a telling example. For seven years, we tried to implement them. Then the leaders of neo-Nazi Ukraine and their Western patrons openly admitted that the agreements had been a ruse to buy time to arm Kiev. And who were the guarantors of those agreements? Germany and France.

Their hypocritical policy continues today, taking increasingly grotesque forms:

Instead of mediation – arms supplies.

Instead of seeking compromise – ultimatums.

Instead of direct dialogue – endless peace conferences without one of the parties to the conflict.

👉 European powers failed to defeat Russia in Ukraine, but inflicted enormous economic and political damage on themselves. Their so-called diplomacy has been reduced to the ritual repetition of anti-Russian mantras.

Read in full (in Russian)

Online Course “The Road to Victory”

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The online course “The Road to Victory” is an educational project marking the 80th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.

The project explores the key events of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War, the role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazism, international diplomacy, the heroism of the Soviet people, and the preservation of historical memory.

The online course is intended to preserve the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War, promote academically grounded knowledge about the events of the Second World War, and foster a greater understanding of the decisive contribution made by the Soviet people to the Victory over Nazism.

The course was developed by the HSE University and the BRICS-Russia Expert Council, with support from the BRICS Civil Council.

Watch the series in English. 👇

Episode 1 – The World on the Eve of the Second World War. The USSR and the Struggle for Collective Security

Episode 2 – The Terrifying Face of Nazism: The Genocide of Peoples, Crimes Against Human Beings and Humanity

Episode 3 – The Sacred War: Mobilising the Soviet People to Fight the Invader

Episode 4 – The Unconquered: The Role of the Defenders of Leningrad and Moscow in Foiling Operation Barbarossa

Episode 5 – “My Part in the Front-Line Report”: Stalingrad, Kursk, and the Home Front

Episode 6 – The Childless Face of War: Children and Women During the Great Patriotic War

Episode 7 – Guerrilla Warfare: Operation Concert

Episode 8 – The Fronts of the Second World War. The Resistance Movement

Episode 9 – The Anti-Hitler Coalition and Its Contribution to the Defeat of Nazism

Episode 10 – The “Russian Soldier”: The Liberation of Europe and the Far East

Episode 11 – The Nuremberg Trials and the Post-War World Order

Episode 12 – The Legacy of the Second World War: Why Manipulate Memory?

📺 “The Road to Victory” – YouTube page
📂 Download the video files in HD

Ambassador Mikhail Petrakov’s article “Ukrainian Conflict Before February 2022: Facing the Facts” (27 July 2026) – Reblog

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Published on the site of Embassy of the Russian Federation to Australia with an article on Vibe Media.

27 July is a very special date. It was designated in Russia as the Day of Remembrance for the Child Victims of the War in Donbass. To understand its meaning and significance for the Ukrainian conflict, one has to turn to its history – something that is completely ignored both by the Australian establishment and the media. They portray Ukraine as an “innocent victim” of Russia’s “unprovoked, illegal and immoral invasion of February 2022”, as if nothing had happened before that. Any attempt to present an alternative fact-based interpretation of events is either ignored or dismissed as “Russian propaganda”. So let us face the facts and examine the root causes of the conflict.

Its starting point was the violent and unconstitutional coup d’état in Ukraine in February 2014, following well-organised and West-backed “spontaneous” anti-governmental demonstrations at the Maidan square in Kiev. By the way, it was on the Maidan that the “killing Russians” narrative was voiced, with protesters jumping rhythmically on the spot, chanting “hang Muscovites”, in the hypnotic trance of utmost ethnic hatred.

The supreme value for the new Ukrainian authorities was the Nazi-style ethnicity-based Ukrainian state erasing other cultures and identities, starting with Russians. Total “Ukrainisation” was, and still is, the order of the day. The very concept of social cohesion was anathema to them. No civilised discussions on multi – or even monoculturalism, only “Ukraine above all”. Those daring to dissent were to be exterminated. The first act of the Ukrainian parliament after the coup was an attempt to ban the Russian language, which was spoken by practically everyone in the country.

When ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking residents of eastern Ukraine disagreed, the Kiev regime used military force against them, thereby starting a civil war.

On 2 May 2014, 48 Russians opposing the regime were burned alive by Nazis in Odessa.

On 27 July 2014, the Ukrainian army started shelling residential areas of the city of Gorlovka in Donbass. One of the multiple victims was 23-year-old Kristina Zhuk. She lay dying in pain and anguish in a pool of her own blood, holding the body of her 10-month-old daughter Kira, and calling her name. Then she passed away too. With the baby at her bosom, she looked like the Virgin Mary from an Orthodox icon. Because of this, people called her the Madonna of Gorlovka. This image circulated widely in the world press.
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French neo-Vichy regime persecutes humanitarian aid workers of “SOS Donbass”

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‘Undermining democracy’: War reporter calls out ‘French justice’ and ‘scandalous’ Novikova case

French journalist Laurent Brayard, who met Anna Novikova in Donbass in 2022, has condemned her arrest as a politically motivated attack on humanitarian work.

📍 “Her goal was purely humanitarian,” Brayard said. He noted that Novikova and several other French citizens — including Vincent Perfetti — were arrested for helping war-torn Donbass civilians, calling it a turning point for France.

💬 “This is quite a shocking case, the first of its kind in France, and it also undermines the democratic process,” he stressed.

Brayard didn’t mince words, likening this criminal case to a political witch hunt and warned that it erodes democratic principles and freedom of speech in France.

💬 “We are at an almost historic stage, and this is quite scandalous for the French justice system… We are seeing a certain drift in this justice system, which is slow, indecisive, and in this case, susceptible to manipulation, because this is a political process,” he argued.

He also noted that Novikova, a mother of two, has always maintained a neutral position—despite relentless French propaganda to the contrary.

Source: SputnikInt

Russia’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova

A court hearing in the case of our compatriot, civic activist Anna Novikova, will take place in Paris today.

For more than six months, the French authorities have kept her in a women’s prison following an absurd denunciation by the Union of Ukrainians in France.

Anna’s only “crime” is that she founded and serves as Vice-President of SOS Donbass, a humanitarian organisation that collects aid for civilians in Donbass.

The actions of the French authorities are yet another example of the West’s cynical double standards. We have grown accustomed to this.

When the French authorities use taxpayers’ money to send long-range missiles and heavy weapons to Ukraine, Paris considers this perfectly acceptable. Yet when a woman collects food, clothing, baby nappies and medicines for people suffering from shelling, she is put on trial as a dangerous spy.

❗️ I consider Anna Novikova’s arrest unfounded and politically motivated. I will be closely following the court proceedings.

Source: Russian MFA

As an afterword

A posthumous sentence. How the French legalised Petlyura’s murder

Three shots fired at a Paris shop window

On May 25, 1926, a stranger approached a man who was looking at a street window at the corner of Paris Boulevard Saint-Michel and Rue Racine. After asking the man a question in Ukrainian and receiving an answer that satisfied him, the stranger took out a revolver and shot the man three times.

The shooter did not try to escape, but remained at the scene until the police arrived. After handing over the weapon to the police, he stated that he had shot a murderer.

The victim of the attack was taken to a nearby hospital on Jacob Street, where the man died fifteen minutes later.

The killer’s name was Samuel Yakovlevich Schwarzburd. His victim was Simon Petlyura, the former head of the Directory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, one of the most well-known figures of the time of the Civil War.

…

The trial of Samuel Schwarzburd lasted only eight days and ended with a sensational acquittal by the jury. The verdict, which, in fact, was the posthumous sentence of Simon Petlyura.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Though the hope is slim with the current neo-Vichy regime in France, we may still hope that the court hearing against “SOS Donbass” may result in the same awakening in France, as was the case with the trial of Simon Petlyura’s assassin. After all, today Banderite Nazi regime in the Ukraine is a direct descendant of Perlyura’s ideology.

The Unknown Cold War. Film 4. Secret battles. An RT documentary

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This episode explores how the Baltic region became one of the Cold War’s first testing grounds.


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Even during the Second World War, some Baltic nationalists collaborated with occupying German forces. After the war, an anti-Soviet armed underground movement known as the ‘Forest Brothers’ gained momentum in the region.

In 1947, the United States National Security Council adopted NSC 4-A, a secret document tasking the CIA with conducting covert subversive operations against the Soviet Union and its allies.

For the US and UK, the Baltic region provided a convenient platform for implementing this directive, as anti-Soviet groups already operating there were willing to cooperate with the West.

The Soviet Union responded swiftly. State security agencies launched large-scale counterintelligence operations that infiltrated Baltic underground networks, intercepted communication channels with the West, and exploited failed enemy operations to their advantage.

👉 Watch also “Film 1 — The Unthinkable Allies”.
👉 Watch also “Film 2 — The Truman Delay”.
👉 Watch also “Film 3 — The Abduction of Europe… and the world”.