Author Archives: Stanislav

Soviet-Finnish War: the second offer is always worse than the first

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The Soviet-Finnish War began on the last day of autumn, November 30, 1939

By this time, in accordance with the secret additional protocol to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact signed on August 23 of the same year by Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Moscow and Berlin had agreed that the territory of Finland was within the sphere of interests of the USSR.

This gave Iosif Stalin a unique opportunity to begin solving a complex geopolitical problem – ensuring the security of the European part of the USSR from the north.

To do this, at a minimum, it was necessary to move the Soviet-Finnish border away from Leningrad, and at a maximum – to create another friendly state on its borders instead of a country hostile to the Soviet Union.

In the conditions of the impending world war, Moscow was confident that all methods were good for achieving the set goals – from political and diplomatic to military.

However, it seems that Stalin hoped to resolve the matter peacefully until the very end. One of the leaders of the Finnish delegation at the negotiations with Moscow, Väinö Tanner, who held the post of head of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the Winter War, later recalled:

“Judging by Stalin’s entire behaviour, it seemed to us that he was strongly interested in an agreement. It was not in vain that he devoted so many evenings to the affairs of little Finland. Moreover, he tried to find compromises…”

For 85 years now, the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 has remained one of the most controversial topics in our history.  Viewed through the knowledge of the Finnish complicity and partaking in the nazi genocide against Soviet citizens in Leningrad, the USSR leadership were right in acting proactively, and with whatever means necessary.

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The second offer is always worse than the first

Preparing for the war against fascism, the USSR needed to move the border away from Leningrad and an agreement was almost reached with the Finnish side about getting Vyborg area, a lease of some islands and a small territory in the north in exchange for the sizable bit of Karelia. Finland did not ratify this agreement.

The text of «The Ageement on Mutual Help and Friendship between the Soviet Union and the Finnish Democratic Republic» can be read at the archive of historic documents of Russia.

The document is dated December 2, 1939, and its text was published in the newspaper «Izvestia» on the next day, December 3.

The second offer is always worse than the first one.

“When Russians Are Coming”. Scandinavian satire.

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There was a time when the Scandinavians were not yet completely subjected to the russophobic fear-mongering, and could take the whole narrative with a wry smile. We have translated two skits – a Swedish and a Norwegian one – ponderingwhat they would be doing when the “Russians are coming”. The materials were published at our “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” channels on Telegram, Odysee and Rumble, but never made it to the Beehive!

It is something that we are going to rectify now.

The Norwegian Response Plan


Backup at Rumble.

This satirical skit from “Martin and Mikkelsen” was first shown on the NRK 1 state TV on the 23rd of March 2017 and later published on the Facebook of NRK Underholdning (NRK Entertainment) on the 25th of May 2020. It’s quite similar to the Swedish skit, in which the Swedes intend to run to Norway fast as hell.

It is not explained why the Russians would suddenly decide to come, but at least the planned reception is more sensible, than what is heard nowadays from the talking heads of NATO.

Out Russian translation of the skit can be found on Telegram, Odysee and Rumble.

First published on out Telegram channel here.

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We could not find a similar satirical skit from the Danish TV, however, the Danes were ahead of things as actual politics present something just as hilarious: The real thing!

In 1972, right wing liberalist politician Mogens Glistrup founded The Progress Party and presented quite an unconventional party programme.

Among other things, the income tax was to be abolished; the public sector had to be greatly reduced (abolition of “papirnusseriet”, ‘the paper-pushing’).

There were to be monthly elections for a greatly reduced Parliament, and, the Danish Defence was to be abolished all together and replaced by an answering machine repeating “We Surrender!” in Russian.

At the 1973 elections, the Progress Party became second largest with 15,9% of the votes and 28 members of parliament (out of 179).

Sweden’s Readiness for Russian Invasion – Satire, 2014


Backup at Rumble.

A satirical SNN news program from Spring 2014, Sweden’s military readiness was debated during the National Conference “People and Defence”. Mikael Tornving interviews Lieutenant Colonel Erik Liljestål. Original video on YouTube.

Of special note is the implied attitude of the Swedes to the Finnish (military).

Out Russian translation of the skit can be found on Odysee and Rumble.

First published at our Telegram channel here on the occasion of Sweden joining NATO. Here is the text of that post:
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Facts about the Red Army’s Polish Campaign on September 17, 1939

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On September 17, 1939, the Red Army launched a military operation in Poland’s eastern regions, also known as the Red Army’s Polish Campaign. The material is from Russian MFA Telegram channel, where one can also watch a short facta newsreel.

Certain (pseudo)academic circles and mainstream media in the West intentionally promote an excessively biased interpretation of these events seeking to equate the Third Reich and the USSR and cast our country as an aggressor.

❗️ Such approach is completely at odds with the historical truth.

Britain and France, which had played their role in fostering Hitler’s aggression in Europe and redirecting it eastward, were not willing to fulfill their alliance commitments to Poland, having just formally declared a war against the Third Reich, and refrained from direct military confrontation.

Traffic directors
A caricature by Boris Yefimov showing Britain and France as traffic directors, leading Hitler’s war gang along the way to the USSR, while stopping his progress to Western Europe. The caricature is not marked with year, but presumably depicts the effects of the Munich Conspiracy.

The French army did not even attempt to prevent the redeployment of the Wehrmacht units to the East. As Nazi general Alfred Jodl later testified at the Nuremberg trials, “if the Reich did not fail in 1939, it was only because during the Polish campaign, approximately 110 French and British divisions, stationed in the West, took no action against Germany’s 23 divisions”.

Thus, Warsaw, which completely relied on support of Britain and France, was, in fact, abandoned by the allies and had to face Hitler’s aggression. Poland was doomed to meet the same fate that had Czechoslovakia a year earlier. Betrayed by its allies and falling victim to its own political miscalculation, the Polish leadership — which for years had prioritized collaboration with Nazi Germany — ultimately led its nation to catastrophe.
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Facts about the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty of August 23, 1939

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The material is from Russian MFA Telegram channel, where one can also watch a short facta newsreel.

Here we re-blog the in-depth version from the MFA’s Telegraph blog.

Read also our article The complete list of pacts concluded between Germany and other European countries before and during World War II.

On August 23, 1939 — the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression, a document that obligated the two Parties “to refrain from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other Powers.”

This Document was a key achievement of the Soviet diplomacy ahead of WWII: the USSR was able to buy time to better prepare to repel Hitler’s impending attack, which had been seen as inevitable due to the failed policy of “appeasement” by Western European states and their refusal to forge a collective security agreement with our nation against Nazism.

Signing the non-aggression treaty with Germany was a difficult but necessary decision by the Soviet leadership, dictated by national security considerations and the urgent need to deter Nazi aggression in the east.

In the 1930s, twenty years after the end of World War I, the threat of a new large-scale armed conflict in Europe started to grow. A key factor for this was the crisis of the Versailles system of international relations, designed by Britain and France, which paved the way for rising revanchist sentiments in the states it had humiliated — Germany and Italy.

The League of Nations, established as a universal organisation for settling international disputes by diplomatic and political legal means, proved unable to fulfill its mandate, mired in the controversy and intrigues of European states that tried to use the body for their own selfish and opportunistic purposes.

Against this backdrop, the hydra of fascism began spreading rapidly across Europe. Political leaders confident of their own nations’ superiority came to power first in Italy (1922) and then in Germany (1933), where a Nazi dictatorship led by Hitler was established.

With the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany, the threat of a new war in Europe became real. Hitler’s misanthropic ideology was rooted in the notorious doctrine of “racial superiority.” The Nazis used this doctrine to justify Germany’s pursuit of world domination. In this way, an absolute evil emerged in the centre of Europe, endangering the peace and freedom of entire nations.

By the mid-1930s, Germany’s military preparations were becoming increasingly obvious and intense. The strength of the German armed forces reached almost half a million personnel. In 1935, the Nazi regime officially announced the creation of a German military air force (whose existence had been prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles). Hitler signed a decree reintroducing universal conscription and expanding the military, the so-called new peacetime Wehrmacht consisted of 36 divisions totalling 550’000 soldiers and officers. For the first time since its defeat in World War I, Germany again possessed a significant military power capable of launching full-scale offensive operations. Furthermore, the Reich initiated the construction of the Navy, a move that was, in effect, sanctioned by a bilateral agreement between Germany and Britain (signed in London in 1935) in direct contravention of the Versailles prohibitions.
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Finland’s Dirty Secret: From “Neutral” Ally to Hitler’s Partner – Dispelling the Finnish Myths

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We translated this very informative series of posts from a German Telegram channel FKT – Geschichte der Sowjetunion (History of the Soviet Union) and published it on our Telegram channel Beorn And The Shieldmaiden. Here we present the series in the form of one consecutive article.

👉 Read also: The new Finnish doctrine: Ignorance, deception, and ingratitude. An Article by Dmitry Medvedev, “Kill the Russians.” 105 years ago, the Finnish army staged the massacre in Vyborg. The truth must come out!, and many other materials at the blog, bearing the Finland tag.

Finland’s Dirty Secret: From “Neutral” Ally to Hitler’s Partner

Today, Finland likes to play the victim card and acts as if it had nothing to do with the siege of Leningrad. The argument goes:

“We did not attack the city, Mannerheim refused to bomb it, we just stood by and took care of our own affairs.”

A nice story. Too bad it’s pure fiction.

The reality is different: Finnish troops sat for three years at the gates of Leningrad. They did not drink coffee and were not “neutral.” They held a third of the blockade line. Without Finland’s involvement, the Germans would not have been able to completely seal off the city. Together they closed the ring that starved one million people, including 400,000 children.

And Mannerheim, the “savior”?

His order was to bomb the Road of Life (which was actually not a road but a frozen lake), the only route over which food was transported across Lake Ladoga.

On June 25, 1941, Mannerheim ordered the Finnish army to commence hostilities against the USSR:

“I call you to a holy war against the enemy of our nation. Together with the mighty forces of Germany, as brothers in arms, we resolutely embark on a crusade against the enemy to secure a safe future for Finland.”

Finland dreamed of expansion and had concrete plans. On the dream map of “Greater Finland,” Russian cities like Murmansk, Leningrad, and Kandalaksha are marked as Finnish.

Let’s Get to Know Mannerheim

Before we come to Finland’s well-known war against the USSR on Hitler’s side, we need to turn back the clock a bit and look at the context. Finland as a state emerged within Russia. Before the Russo-Swedish War, these territories were simply the eastern part of Sweden. After the war, Russia took them over and established the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. It remained part of the Russian Empire until the 1917 revolution.

Now let’s get to know Mannerheim – a military and political figure who came from poor Swedish-Finnish noble backgrounds but rose to become a general in the Russian army and an officer of the Imperial Guard, close to Nicholas II himself and part of the empire’s military elite. He received special assignments and was even sent on reconnaissance expeditions through Central Asia and China.

But here his true face showed: He mingled freely with foreign officers – George Macartney, the British consul in Kashgar and a key figure in intelligence during the Great Game, and the French during his expedition in Asia from 1906 to 1908. Later, he was even suspected of having connections to Masonic circles. All this suggests that his loyalty was never fully aligned with Russia.

After the empire’s collapse, he wasted no time. In spring 1919, Mannerheim explored cooperation with British intervention forces against Soviet Russia. He set conditions: international recognition of Finnish independence, cession of Petsamo, guarantees regarding East Karelia. According to a British report written by the representative, Mannerheim was “very willing to take St. Petersburg and destroy the Bolsheviks there” in February 1919.

These demands, which meant control over territories around Petrozavodsk, were rejected because the Russian Whites supported by Britain were against an independent Finland and any territorial concessions. Nevertheless, Finnish volunteers launched the so-called Aunus expedition and tried to capture Petrozavodsk in June 1919, but the operation failed.

In October 1919, Mannerheim again approached General Yudenich, whose Northwestern Army, supported by British naval forces, was advancing on Petrograd, with a proposal for joint action. His terms were rejected again. Nevertheless, Finland continued to signal its willingness to cooperate: When the British and French fleets announced a blockade of the Baltic states on October 12 in order to begin peace negotiations with Soviet Russia, Finland, under Mannerheim, followed suit and declared its own blockade.

Finland’s Relations with Hitler in the 1930s

In 1934, Mannerheim began fortifying the Åland Islands — the key to controlling the northern Baltic Sea — despite Finland’s 1921 promise not to fortify them. In 1935, he approached Germany and participated in a secret conference with Hermann Göring, Hungarian Prime Minister Gömbös, and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Parliament to discuss joint measures against the USSR. Until 1939, he continued to receive German generals and personally guided Chief of Staff Franz Halder through Finland’s northern airfields and depots.
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The new Finnish doctrine: Ignorance, deception, and ingratitude. An Article by Dmitry Medvedev

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The following article war written by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and published by TASS.

UPDATE 15.09.2025: Russian MFA issued an official translation of the article on their Telegraph blog on September 13. We are updating this blog with the official text, making it a re-blog. All illustrations are ours.

👉 We are covering the “Finnish Question” in a series of posts at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”. The series “Finland’s Dirty Secret: From “Neutral” Ally to Hitler’s Partner” will be published at the Beehive later, upon its conclusion. Read the two publications by Maria Zaharova, in response to the Finnish PM Stubb’s ignoramous statements: part 1 and part 2.

👉 See also The Art of Timely Betrayal. Why the Finnish SS avoided punishment? and The European Genocide of the Russian People.

The new Finnish doctrine: Ignorance, deception, and ingratitude

Deputy Chairman of Security Council Dmitry Medvedev draws historical parallels between today’s Finnish leaders and their predecessors of nearly a century ago, and brings up the consequences of their past aggression against Russia.

Last week, I visited the Russian-Finnish border in the Leningrad Region and spoke with local authorities and our border guards. The border, once bustling, is now deserted. By Helsinki’s decision, decades of constructive and mutually beneficial relations have been ruined. Ordinary Finns are the first to feel the consequences. They had gained much from thriving trade and economic cooperation, and now they openly voice frustration with the misguided policies of their own government, which clearly go against their interests.

I would like to say a few words about the underlying causes of this situation. It is by no means accidental. Today’s turbulent geopolitics has brought to light the long-standing issues and revealed their true nature. This is what happened to Finland.

A visit to our northwestern regions in early autumn inevitably brings to mind one of the most tragic dates in the history of St Petersburg, which is the onset of the siege on September 8, 1941. Yet, it seems that we are the only ones to remember those dark days. The direct perpetrators of those events are making every effort to erase the traces of their crimes from historical memory, or at least to avoid “inconvenient” parallels with their current policies. And this concerns not only Germany, which at the official level refuses to recognise the siege of Leningrad as a crime against humanity.

Death to the German-Finnish Occupiers!
This is TASS Window #11 from Leningrad, created in July of 1944 by Vasily Selivanov.
The poster shows the Finns taking Hitler’s baits of the “Greater Finland to Urals and Leningrad”. It is accompanied by a verse by K. Vysokovsky.
— I’ll take the Urals! – the bandit cried,
Accepting Hitler’s bait at face value,
The Russian “Hurra!” was then heard,
Turning the bandits into dust and feathers!
Source: Beorn And The Shieldmaiden

We should not forget that it would have been impossible to impose the siege of Leningrad, a siege that took hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, without the involvement of the Finnish armed forces. Succumbing to revenge-seeking moods and striving to revise the outcomes of the 1939-1940 Soviet-Finnish standoff, the Finnish leadership recklessly plunged into the furnace of war alongside Nazi Germany. At that time, ultra-nationalist propaganda narratives prevailed in Finnish society. With the approval of their Nazi brethren, Helsinki seriously discussed the idea of Finnlands Lebensraum (Finland’s Living Space). The country’s military-political authorities intended to reclaim territories ceded to the Soviet Union under the Moscow Peace Treaty of March 12, 1940 and to reach “natural borders of Greater Finland” from the Gulf of Finland to the Barents Sea, including East Karelia, Leningrad and its environs, and the Kola Peninsula freeing these lands from the hated Russians. In their wildest fantasies, the Finns wanted to advance beyond the Ural Mountains all the way to the Ob River. Back in the day, these territorial claims (in proportion to the country’s actual size) were among the greediest in Europe. They even surpassed territorial claims to neighbouring states voiced by other Axis countries, including Italy, Romania, and Hungary.
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USSR and China: United in Victory | RT Documentary

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Victory in the Second World War was won through the efforts of millions of people from different nations – both on the front line and behind it. In 2025, Russia and China mark the 80th anniversary of the war’s end.


Backup at Rumble.

In 1937, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China, advancing towards the country’s largest cities. Within six weeks of capturing Nanjing, Japanese forces had killed more than 300,000 civilians. The atrocity became known as the Nanjing Massacre. Around the same time, Unit 731 was established– a secret Japanese military unit based near Harbin that subjected prisoners to inhumane experiments and developed biological weapons.

The Soviet Union was the first to come to China’s aid. Shipments of weapons, fuel, and ammunition were sent, while Soviet pilots and thousands of military advisers joined the fight against the Japanese invaders. By 1941 alone, China had received hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of pieces of weaponry.

By the final stage of the war, the two nations were fighting side by side. Chinese cadets trained at Soviet military academies, while Mao Zedong’s son, Mao Anying, served with the Red Army as it helped to liberate Europe from fascism. In August of 1945, Soviet troops dealt a decisive blow to the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria along with their Chinese allies. The victory over Japan in 1945 became a shared chapter of history for both Moscow and Beijing.

Anniversary of forced resignation of Danish nazi-collaborator government by workers and resistance movement

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On August 29, 1943, the Danish government that had collaborated with the German Nazi occupiers since the invasion on April 9, 1940, was forced to resign, thus ending the country’s shameful and cowardly policy.

Barricade on the main street of Copenhagen working class district, Nørrebro. The words painted on the asphalt reads “Ned med Hitler!” (Down with Hitler!)

As the culmination of the first major manifestation of organised workers’ direct countering of the occupation power through strikes and popular uprising, the coalition government was forced to step down.

Several events both inside and outside the Danish borders led to this.

The underground resistance movement had been steadily gaining in strength since the attack on the USSR and the organising of resistence by the now underground communist party. Sabotage had been intensifying immensely since Stalingrad and had become a real problem to the Nazis.

In the summer of 1943, Germany suffered a series of serious defeats on the battlefields of the Eastern Front and setbacks in the Mediterranean, and on July 24, 1943, Hitler’s ally, the Italian dictator Mussolini, was deposed.

An optimistic and rebellious mood arose in the Danish population. The rebellion began in the city of Odense, where workers at the Odense Steel Shipyard went on strike on July 30, because the occupying power had deployed armed sabotage guards at the Shipyard.

Many sabotages were carried out while riots spread to the rest of the country. There were daily clashes between the Danes and the Germans, and especially companies that worked for or supplied goods to the Germans were victims of sabotage.

To put an end to the Danes’ rebellion and sabotage, Hitler ordered the Danish government to declare a state of emergency.

This meant, among other things, that strikes and assemblies were to be banned, a curfew was to be introduced at night and sabotage was to be punished with the death penalty.

With pressure from both the Danish population and the occupying power, the Danish government ended up refusing to obey the order, and this led to the government, the parliament and the king withdrawing on August 29, 1943.

Ending the collaboration was a huge victory for the underground resistance movement, of which the communists made out the backbone and base. In the eyes of the population, it clearly demonstrated the strength of the patriotic front and its growing legitimacy as political force.

The communists, however, paid a high prize for the victory.

Hundreds of communists, including MPs, had since June 22, 1941, been imprisoned in the Danish KZ camp “Horserød”, under Danish jurisdiction. Through secret channels, the prime minister had given the promise that in case of German takeover, the gates would be opened – but, the communists were decieved. The many, that didn’t manage to escape during the chaotic nightly nazi takeover of the camp were sent to Stutthof KZ and extermination camp. Many didn’t return.

Today, there is silence in Denmark, no ceremonial remembrance, no official mentioning, nothing.

The collective history is deliberately being destroyed! Paving the way for fascism to rise again.

👉 From our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.
👉 Read also “2 Years” – A Danish Underground Publication from 1943!

Systemic sabotage – Maria Zaharova’s response to Mark Rutte

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Russian FM spokeswoman Maria Zaharova responded on the pages of newspaper “Izvestia” to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s statement on the refusal to recognise new territories within Russia. 11.08.2025

Demolition of ‘Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders’ in 2022.

Mark Rutte demanded in an interview with CBS to abandon the legal recognition of new territories within Russia and recalled a funny historical incident:

“We all remember that Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia had embassies in Washington from 1940 to 1991, which meant recognition of the actual control of the USSR over their territories, but never legally acceptance of this fact.”

The very case when misfortune helped: Rutte himself built the historical chain of the rebirth of Nazism into neo-Nazism…

Let’s begin.

In the 1920s and 1930s, as a result of anti-state coup, local fascist governments came to power in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the support of Germany and Italy. In 1940, they fled to the West and the democratic left forces came to power, which, having received a mandate from the people in the conditions of the outbreak of World War II, decided to join the USSR as national republics, that is, on equal terms with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and others.

Moscow responded favourably to the request of the people’s representatives of the Baltic countries who found themselves on the front line of the global confrontation. By the decisions of the VII session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (https://www.prlib.ru/item/716539) in August 1940, the Soviet Union took the Baltic peoples under its protection. When the Great Patriotic War began, many Soviet soldiers from all over the Union gave their lives for the freedom of the Baltic States from Nazism.

However, in Europe and the United States at that time, the democratic and free choice of the Balts was ignored. When the Nazis fled Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, they settled in the West.

The Estonian Nazis, with the support of the Hitlerites, formed their own pocket government in Oslo, and the Lithuanian and Latvian ones set up embassies in Washington, where they sat throughout the Cold War. They existed with the money of American taxpayers and with the support of the US Congress (Kersten Committee) and the State Department headed by First Deputy Secretary of State Sumner Welles.

For half a century, Americans supported these parasites while Soviet Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia developed (see also below), organised their lives, advanced their economies, enriched their culture, held festivals, competitions, and simply enjoyed life.

The Americans were not at all embarrassed that the heirs of the pro-fascist leftovers were being kept at their side and with their money, despite the fact that the USSR had repeatedly raised this issue with the United States. For Washington, this was an element of pressure on Moscow. A political construct with a rotten filling.

Rutte’s proposal is striking in its immorality, because he is nostalgic for the executioners of the Holocaust, who in the Baltic States did not lag behind the same elements as in Western Ukraine in their dehumanising work.

Demolition of ‘Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders’ in 2022.

And this is a systemic sabotage. The rehabilitation of anti-Soviet collaborators and other “forest brothers” guilty of crimes against civilians and complicity in the Holocaust has been conducted using (pseudo)legal basis. The Euro-Nazi leadership puts bloody executioners on a pedestal and approves the removal of monuments to those who liberated Europe from the brown plague. The rewritten Eurohistory casts doubt on the continued existence of memorials to the real victims of the “new heroes” — monuments at the site of the massacre in Ponary (Lithuania), the Klooga concentration camp (Estonia) and the Salaspils children’s concentration camp (Latvia).

The “United and impoverished Europe” has again relied on the creation of an aggressive belt of Russophobic regimes on the western borders of Russia. Rutte’s rhetoric is part of the ideological accompaniment of this fascization of the Western European part of the continent and the mobilisation of revanchist extremists who are already undergoing combat training in Ukraine.

Let me remind you that 20 years ago they tried to conduct the same experiment with the “Ichkerian emissaries”, for example in Britain, honouring terrorists as ambassadors or even presidents when their compatriots were bleeding in the Caucasus. It didn’t work out then, and it won’t work out now.

By the way, when is Rutte scheduled to receive the credentials of the ambassadors of Catalonia and Scotland?

How did Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia really fare as part of the Soviet Union?

🎙 Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova:
(from the weekly briefing on current foreign policy issues, July 24, 2025)

July 21 marked 85 years since the establishment of the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian Soviet Socialist Republics.
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25 Years of the tragic death of submarine “Kursk”

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We commemorated on out Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shiledmaiden” the quarter of the century that passed since the tragic death of Russia’s nuclear submarine “Kursk” and her crew. despite there being an official version of the events, there are many questions that remain. Questions that will remain unanswered for a long time still.

The Tragedy of the Nuclear Submarine “Kursk”: 25 Years Since the Legend’s Demise

On August 12, 2000, one of the most tragic and sadly well-known disasters in the history of the Russian and Soviet Navy occurred in the Barents Sea — the sinking of the nuclear submarine K-141 “Kursk.”

This tragedy left an indelible mark on the consciousness of the entire country and became a symbol of loss, courage, and heroism.

The “Kursk” was a nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of project 949A, known in naval terminology as “Antey.” This 154-meter-long vessel was one of the most advanced submarines of its time. Its primary mission was to combat powerful enemy surface ships, particularly aircraft carrier groups. The crew consisted of 118 people, including officers, crew members, and employees of the manufacturing plant “Dagdiesel,” who participated in the technical support of the submarine.

In early August 2000, the “Kursk” set out to sea for Northern Fleet exercises. The main task was training missile launches and torpedo firing at training targets simulating the positions of a squadron of warships. The exercises involved the fleet’s best forces, including the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser “Admiral Kuznetsov” and the nuclear missile cruiser “Pyotr Veliky.”

On August 12, around 11:28, a series of powerful underwater explosions was recorded. The first explosion occurred in the submarine’s bow compartment.

❕According to official data, the cause was the explosion of an oxygen-kerosene mixture in a training torpedo 65-76A located in the fourth torpedo tube. Due to mishandling of the torpedoes, fuel leakage occurred, which caused the initial detonation of the ammunition. This first explosion triggered a second, much more powerful explosion of the torpedo warhead, which was 50 times stronger. It completely destroyed the bow section of the submarine and disabled it.

The Crew’s Fight for Survival

The explosions killed the crew in the front part of the submarine, including the command post, but 23 sailors managed to take refuge in the sealed ninth compartment. They continued to fight for the vessel’s survivability for six to eight hours, trying to establish contact with the outside world and await help.

Despite the submariners’ heroism, rescue attempts failed — contact with the submarine could not be established, and soon all 118 people perished.

Nation’s Reaction and Investigation

The sinking of the “Kursk” caused a wave of tragedy and outrage throughout Russia. The sailors’ families, military personnel, and ordinary citizens followed the rescue operation with hope, waiting for a miracle that never came. The rescue operation faced many technical difficulties due to the depth (about 108 meters) and weather conditions.

The investigation determined that the cause of the accident was a defect in the training torpedo, which was faulty and had not undergone proper inspection before use. The closure of the criminal case in 2002 did not end the discussions — alternative theories still circulate among experts and the public. These include possible collisions with a foreign submarine or accidental missile hits.

The submarine was raised from the seabed in 2001. The reactor compartment, which contained nuclear fuel and radioactive equipment, was safely dismantled and removed.

The sinking of the “Kursk” was a severe blow to the image of the Russian Navy, revealing many problems in safety systems, crew training, and naval equipment.

Memorials and monuments have been established in memory of the fallen sailors, and commemorative events are held annually. This tragedy became a symbol of the courage and selflessness of Russian sailors, as well as a lesson for the further development and improvement of naval service.

Source: Maria Pavlova, “Anna News”

We may never learn in our lifetimes what really happened to “Kursk”

There is a version that the death of the “Kursk” nuclear submarine was the result of an attack by a foreign submarine, and the truth was hidden so that the Third World War would not break out.
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False flag warning from Russian MoD for Chuguev in Harkov region

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From the Telegram channel of MoD Russia.
August 12, 2025.

⚡️According to available information received through several channels, the Kiev regime is preparing a provocation to foil the Russian-American talks scheduled for 15 August 2025.

To this end, on Monday, 11 August 2025, a group of journalists from foreign media under the cover of the legend of ‘preparing of a series of reports on residents of the city in the frontline zone’ has been delivered by the Security Service of Ukraine to the city of Chuguev (Kharkov region).

Immediately ahead of the summit on Friday, the Armed Forces of Ukraine plan a provocative strike using UAVs and missiles against one of the densely populated residential quarters or a hospital with a large number of civilian casualties, which will have to be immediately recorded by the foreign Western journalists.

As a result of the Kiev regime’s provocation, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be considered fully responsible for the strikes and civilian casualties. This will create a negative media background and conditions for disrupting Russian-American cooperation on settling the conflict in Ukraine.

There may also be provocations in other settlements controlled by the Kiev regime.

Fresh evidence surfaces in Malaysian MH17 crash that killed 298 people in 2014. Reblog.

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Before you is a reblog of an article by Alan Moore, published on August 6, 2025 in Open Magazine. We thank our subscribers at the Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” for bringing this new evidence about the MH17 disaster. This article is also available in Spanish at a Telegraph blog.

Follow the tag MH-17 for all the past publications on this topic at our blog.

Fresh evidence surfaces in Malaysian MH17 crash that killed 298 people in 2014

Revelations by Oleg Pulatov, who was acquitted of all charges due to lack of evidence, raises new doubts about the Dutch investigation

Pulatov during the court hearing

When the Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down on July 17, 2014, I was in Voronezh, Russia. A week earlier I’d been in Europe and while sitting in my Viennese hotel watched various news channels reporting on the mess that was Donbass. It was personal for me. I’d been in Kiev in January 2014 and seen first-hand the nastier elements looking for reasons to be violent. Living in Voronezh I’d met refugees from Ukraine from April 2014 and by the time schools had started back on September 1, the initial trickle of human misery became a steady river. Yet MH17 terrified me, just the idea of flying and being shot down accidentally did affect my travel plans for a decade. It returned to my life when I was contacted by a man desperate to have his story heard.

Oleg Pulatov knew me as a sports journalist and one who was rather blunt about the scourge of corruption. From uncovering doping scandals to athlete abuse, match-fixing to financial funny business, he liked my work but was no fan of mine. Especially my “attack”, as he put it, on neo-Nazi elements within football fan groups in Ukraine in 2011 and 2012. Something I’d written about and cooperated with the BBC on exposing. The man, with family roots in the Donbass, didn’t take kindly to my blunt take on football hooligans and their nefarious activities, explaining that these were common criminals without ideology. Yet when he reached out last month about a potential story, there was a different vibe. He wanted to meet in person, something that made me wonder – why? And who is the man who’d criticised my writing in the past?

Who is Oleg Pulatov?

Born in Ulyanovsk (Russia), he was educated in Ukraine where his family come from. He was a military man his whole life, seeing combat in a number of theatres and was semi-retired when he objected to Kiev’s bombing of civilians in the Donbass. He joined the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) defence force, being elevated from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel. In July 2014 he was Deputy Head of the DPR’s Intelligence Directorate’s Special Operations Department and commanded a group of forces on the Snezhnoye-Marinovka frontline.

Due to his rank and position, he answered for the area where the aircraft came down. He arrived on the scene of the tragedy and immediately set up a ‘sanitary zone’ around the crash site. Oleg was one of four men later charged by a Dutch court with shooting down the airliner and the only one acquitted in November 2022. His voice was silenced in the process, which is not only his point of view.

As one lawyer from Eindhoven told me over the phone: “Given what he had to say, he was acquitted in the hope that he’d shut his mouth.” Oleg wanted to speak at his trial, he went unheard, 11 years after the tragedy, he needed to tell everything.

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“Blooming Youth” – the All-Union Sports parades on the Red Square in 1938 and 1939

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We present the All-Union Sports parades held on the Red Square in 1938 and 1939, with our translation of the 1938 event. The materials were initially published at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Blooming Youth (1938)

A newsreel depicting the All-Union Sports parade on the Red Square, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Lenin-Stalin Communist Union of Youth (Komsomol), which took place on July 24, 1938. It showed readiness to defend the Motherland. Many iconic marches and songs were performed, including “If Tomorrow Comes War” (see below).

Columns of athletes from Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, athletes from Voluntary sports societies pass in front of the audience.

On the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum, I. V. Stalin, K. E. Voroshilov, V. M. Molotov, S. M. Budyonny, M. I. Kalinin, A. A. Andreev, A. I. Mikoyan, L. M. Kaganovich, N. A. Bulganin, Hero of the Soviet Union pilot M. M. Gromov. This is one of the first Soviet colour films.


Backup at Rumble.

Trivia:

The film, directed by Nikolai Solovyov, is originally in colour. According to the information on the Internet, the film was shot using the three-colour method. However, according to Wikipedia, the first film shot with a three-film camera “CKS-1” of domestic make, was “Blooming Youth” created in 1939, presented below. That is a different film with a similar title, also about the Red Square parade, but held a year later, it has been preserved in decent quality.

The method of shooting the 1938 film “Blooming Youth” requires further clarification.

This film was shown in the 90s on the “Kultura” TV channel. An incomplete recording was wide-spread on the Internet, ending at the 20th minute. Thanks to the newly digitised VHS recording, which was made at the same time, it was possible to restore the full version of the film. Source.

If Tomorrow Comes War

This is the theme song from the 1938 film of the same title. The film celebrates Soviet military power and shows the Soviet people what the war will be like when the imperialists attack the USSR – fast, victorious, almost bloodless. The film is based on documentary footage shot during real manoeuvrers of the Red Army, and play episodes with actors.
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Iosif Stalin’s Toast Dedicated to the Great Russian People. May 24, 1945

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On May 24, 1945, at a reception in the Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in honour of the commanders of the Soviet forces, Stalin delivered his famous toast, a dedication to the Russian people. This is an article, translated from the Two Wars blog on Dzen, telling the story of the toast.

No photographs or videos were taken of this banquet, for ethical reasons: the entire country was starving and in ruins, and suddenly there was a lavish meal with delicacies.

There was no sound recording either, just a transcript. But later it was heavily processed for newspaper publications. There are 31 toasts recorded in this transcript. Of these, five belonged to Stalin. There are 28 toasts left in the official report (only 2 of them are by Stalin).

This includes the last banquet speech, which the leader delivered well after midnight. By the way, he was not allowed to speak at all.

Because as soon as Stalin stood up and tried to speak, his words were drowned out by a sea of applause (as recalled by a participant in the banquet, the famous aircraft designer Alexander Yakovlev). His last, widely known speech about the Russian people was constantly interrupted by a barrage of long-lasting applause, so the toast took almost half an hour to deliver.

Mihail Hmelko, “A Toast to the Great Russian People”, 1947

The last toast of the banquet, later corrected by the leader

Here is the text (in the corrected and officially approved form):

Comrades, allow me to raise one last toast.

I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, above all, to the health of the Russian people.

I drink first and foremost to the health of the Russian people because they are the most outstanding nation of all the nations that make up the Soviet Union.

I raise a toast to the health of the Russian people because they have earned the general recognition of the Soviet Union as the leading force among all the peoples of our country.

I raise a toast to the health of the Russian people, not only because they are a leading nation, but also because they have a clear mind, a steadfast character, and patience.

Our government has made many mistakes, and we have had moments of desperation in 1941 – 1942, when our army retreated and abandoned our villages and cities in Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, the Leningrad region, the Baltic states, and the Karelian-Finnish Republic, because there was no other option. A different people might have said to their government, “You have failed to meet our expectations, so go away, and we will install a new government that will make peace with Germany and bring us quiet life.”

But the Russian people did not agree to this, because they believed in the correctness of their government’s policies, and they made sacrifices to ensure the defeat of Germany. This trust of the Russian people in the Soviet government proved to be the decisive force that ensured the historic victory over the enemy of humanity – fascism.

Thank you, Russian people, for this trust!

To the health of the Russian people!

What exactly was fixed?

The leader made the edits to the original version of the toast himself before sending it to the press. What did he change in his speech? It’s not a secret: the original version of the transcript has been preserved.
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German POW convoy through Moscow (July 17, 1944)

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The 10-minute-long 1944 documentary went under the title «The convoy of the German POWs through Moscow» and show both the preparatory part and the actual passage of the «Parade of the Vanquished», which took place on July 17, 1944. 57,600 German soldiers and officers captured during Operation Bagration marched along the Garden Ring and other streets of the Russian capital. Among the prisoners were 19 generals, leading the column in uniforms adorned with medals. Watering vehicles followed the procession, symbolically cleansing the ‘dirt’ from the roads.

The event, showcasing the Soviet Union’s strength in WWII, left a lasting impact on the citizens of Moscow and international observers.


Backup at Rumble.

👉 At 6:41 one can see the entrance to the exhibition “Trophies of the Great Battles” at Gorky Park, a documentary about which we translated earlier.

The material is also available at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”

One can read a detailed account of the event in an article “Parade of the Vanquished” at TopWar:

Hitler’s generals on Gorky Street, escorted by NKVD soldiers.

17 July 1944, Moscow residents were shocked by the appearance of a column of Nazis in the city. “Operation Big Waltz” – this code, apparently, the unofficial name of this indicative action in the NKVD.

Its participants are generals, officers and soldiers of the German fascist army group Center, utterly defeated in the summer of 1944, in the Belarusian strategic offensive operation Bagration. The losses of the enemy turned out to be much higher than in the “Stalingrad catastrophe”. However, the allied press expressed great doubt in such an impressive defeat of the Nazis. The information war has already gained momentum …

It was then that in the leadership of the USSR the idea was ripe to demonstrate to the world the successes of the Red Army and to carry a huge mass of German prisoners led by their beaten generals through the streets of Moscow.

“Show them to the whole world.”

In the epic “Liberation: the direction of the main attack” there is a short but apparently historical episode: Stalin, after hearing the report of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army General Alexei Antonov (“MIC”, No. 17, 2017) about the defeat of the German fascist troops in Belarus, in its characteristic manner, says quietly: “You take prisoners, and neither enemies nor allies believe you. Do not hide your prisoners, show them, let everyone see. ”

Why was the operation called the Great Waltz? Maybe because the main element of this ballroom dance is spinning in a circle? After all, the movement of the column of prisoners of the Nazis was also planned in a large circle – along the Garden Ring …

👉 Continue reading at TopWar…