Tag Archives: Donbass

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.

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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.

Donbass Is Behind Us – The unofficial anthem of Donbass

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This song, “Donbass Is Behind Us”, dedicated to the 77th anniversary of liberating Donbass from the fascist invaders, came out in the fall of 2020 and quickly became an unofficial anthem of Donbass.

July 3rd, is Independence Day of the LPR, Lugansk People’s Republic. Here’s a translation of the song, performed by Natalia Kachura and Margarita Lisovina, to English.


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Source of the video: “Донбасс за нами” официальный клип
Translation, adapted to preserve rhyme and rhythm, and subtitles by Putinger’s Cat

🇷🇺 🇷🇺 🇷🇺

In total darkness, came awake the Beast,
And he announced to God a heavy price.
Everyone bent, even brothers in Christ,
Everything bent, but not my Motherland.

A leap year brought rich harvest to the land,
And death was drunk, having a feast of blood,
The sky was bending under clouds of lead,
Everything bent, but not my Motherland.

Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Donbass is behind us, and with us is God!
Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Russia is with us, and with us is God!

Here, fathers’ memory was not betrayed,
Grandfathers’ land stayed in descendants’ hands,
Words can’t describe the heavy price they paid,
Not sparing own lives for the Fatherland.

And now, once more, Russia’s strength fills the hands,
For life and death for Motherland are grand.
Holding the sky, through centuries, she stands,
My unbroken and unconquered land.

Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Donbass is behind us, and with us is God!
Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Russia is with us, and with us is God!

Perhaps, we’re meant to perish on the cross,
But we won’t ever be seen kneeling down.
Out in a bloodied field, alone, for all,
Holding the sky, Donbass is holding ground.

Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Donbass is behind us, and with us is God!
Half the sky’s on fire, half the sky’s in smoke,
Russia is with us, and with us is God!

🇷🇺 🇷🇺 🇷🇺

Liberation of Debaltsevo railway station on September 3, 1943. Painting by Ivan Ryzhkov, 1947. Photo by Sergey Kopylov, 2015.

Battle for Donbass – a documentary to the song ‘Kukushka’

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A documentary, created by Aleksey Korablin, to the song by Victor Tsoi “Kukushka”, performed by Polina Gagarina. First published at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.


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Video source on YouTube

The footage is from 2015 – 2016, when Ukraine, after the US-sponsored Nazi coup of 2014, was in full swing in their genocide of the Eastern Ukrainian (Russian) population of Donbass.

Watch this footage and let the hypocrisy in Macron’s words, spoken ten years later, in November of 2025, sink in!

“Russia itself chose the path of war, nothing justified this war, not a single real threat, only fakes. All this is in complete disregard of the truth, influenced by the reflexes and instincts of a state that cannot reconcile with its history”

Donbass helpers were arrested in Germany

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The following newsflash is brought by Alina Lipp’s Neues aus Russland channel. She herself is under German sanctions for her reporting from Donbass!

Donbass helpers were arrested in Germany

Statement by Friedensbrücke Kriegsopferhilfe e.v.* on the arbitrary arrests on January 21, 2026 in Brandenburg

The arrests of two alleged supporters of the so-called “People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk” carried out today are a blatant expression of politically motivated justice in Germany, which has increasingly become a tool for discrediting and criminalising humanitarian aid and legitimate political expression.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office classifies the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as “terrorist organisations” in complete disregard of historical and political realities. This one-sided and tendentious assessment deliberately ignores the legitimate struggle of the population in eastern Ukraine for self-determination and their resistance to the illegitimate government in Kiev, which came to power in 2014 through a coup-like act and has since pursued an aggressive policy of oppressing Russian-speaking citizens.

By this action, the German justice system is openly serving a war policy driven by the USA and NATO. The criminalisation of humanitarian aid deliveries to the Donbass, a region that has suffered from a blockade and shelling by the Ukrainian army for years, is not only immoral but also a serious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.

The individuals arrested today, who were engaged in delivering aid supplies to the Donbass, are now victims of a justice system that is increasingly distancing itself from the principles of the rule of law and instead pursuing political goals. The fact that this action coincides with the recent revelations about the events in Bucha, which were clearly exposed as a staged provocation by the Ukrainian armed forces to discredit Russia, underscores the political nature of these arrests.

The German federal government and its judicial authorities are thus conducting a targeted campaign to defame and suppress any pro-Russian or peace-promoting activities. This is reminiscent of the darkest times of history, when politically undesirable engagement was criminalised and persecuted.

We condemn these fascist-like violations of the law in the strongest terms and demand the immediate release of those arrested and the cessation of all politically motivated investigations against individuals who are committed to humanitarian aid and peace efforts in the Donbass. Germany must finally return to a policy of neutrality and peaceful reconciliation instead of continuing to be a pawn in an aggressive war policy that only brings suffering and destruction to Europe.

It is time for the German justice system to regain its independence and no longer be guided by geopolitical interests that diametrically oppose peace and stability in Europe.

Further information (in German) here

*Peace-Bridge War Victims Aid Association www.fbko.org

Translated by @BeornAndTheShieldmaiden

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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The first reunification of Donbass and Russia

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Without understanding the history of Donbass in the early XX century, it is impossible to understand the civil war that is taking place in Ukraine now. We have raised this topic in a 2016 article “Short History of Creation of Ukraine and Donetsk-Krivorog Republics after the 1917 Revolution in Russia”. However, that article was not as systematic as the one you are about to read now – “The first reunification of Donbass and Russia”. It was published in Regnum on June 17, 2017.

After reading this article, we will have a solid foundation for understanding the topic of forced ukrainisation, which was taking place in 1920s, a topic which we wil return to in a later publication.

The problem of Donbass is not new to Russia. Few people know, but in the early twenties of the last century, Russia and Ukraine were already in a very serious conflict over this region. Moreover, the tensions around that territorial dispute were very high. It almost came to a direct military confrontation. It worked out that time. Russia won then. However, the conflict itself was hushed up for a very long time, for obvious reasons. But as they say, there are never permanently resolved conflicts, especially if these conflicts are linguistic and regional in nature. And perhaps, having read the history of the territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia over the Eastern Donbass, it will be easier to understand the processes taking place now in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

The signing of the Brest Peace by the Ukrainian Central Rada on February 9, 1918, according to which the territory of Ukraine (including Donbass) was to be occupied by German troops can be considered as a kind of a start to that conflict. In response, on February 12, 1918, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic (DKR) was proclaimed in Harkov at the regional congress of Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, which declared its independence and, accordingly, did not recognise the Brest Peace. The government of the new republic included representatives of the all—Russian left-wing parties, while the DKR was headed by the Bolshevik comrade Artyom (Fyodor Sergeev). After the proclamation of the republic, he sent a telegram to the leader of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin:

“The Regional Congress of Soviets adopted a resolution on the creation of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog basin as part of the All-Russian Federation of Soviets.”

According to the leadership of the new republic, it was created primarily based on the territorial and economic principle and was supposed to include the territories of three basins: coal, iron ore and salt. The coal basin (Donbass), divided in the imperial period of Russian history between several administrative units (Yekaterinoslav and Harkov provinces, as well as the Donskoy Army Region, also known as Don Host Region), according to the republican leadership, was supposed to become a single entity within one administrative unit. Therefore, not only Yekaterinoslav province (on the territory of which the Central or, as it was also called, Old Donbass was located) was included in the DKR, but also, as “comrade Artyom” wrote in a note to the heads of foreign states, describing the eastern borders of the DKR: “The Sea of Azov to Taganrog and the borders of the Soviet coal districts of the Don region along the railway line Rostov — Voronezh to Lihaya station.” And in the future, it is these “coal Soviet districts” that will become a stumbling block in the border dispute between the two Soviet republics.

German troops on the Sophia square in Kiev in April of 1918

However, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic could not cope with the German offensive, and by the end of May 1918, the Germans had occupied all of Ukraine (including Donbass) and part of the territory of the Donskoy Army Region. The Government of the DKR was forced to evacuate.

After the revolution in Germany, in the autumn of 1918, the Bolsheviks began the liberation of Ukraine from the German occupiers. At the end of January 1919, the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) of Ukraine was established in liberated Harkov under the leadership of Christian Rakovsky. The Government of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic has also returned to Harkov. However, the Soviet leadership in Moscow decided that strategically, the existence of Soviet Ukraine is now more important than the existence of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic. Therefore, the Central Committee (CC) of the Bolshevik Party decided to annex the territory of the DKR to the territory of Ukraine (which at that time was understood by the majority of the population of the former Russian Empire as the Middle Dnieper and the Right Bank of the Dnieper). On February 17, 1919, Vladimir Lenin signed a decree: “Ask comrade Stalin, through the Bureau of the Central Committee, to carry out the decommissioning of Krivdonbass”. The leadership of the DKR, dominated by the Bolsheviks, albeit with a heavy heart, but obeyed the decision of the party. In March 1919, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was proclaimed in Harkov. And since the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic became part of the Ukrainian SSR, the eastern border of the DKR automatically became the eastern border of Soviet Ukraine. To a certain extent, this came as a surprise to many residents of both Taganrog and Eastern Donbass (Alexandro-Hrushevsky (Shakhtinsky) and Yekaterinenskoe-Kamensky districts), who began to write mass appeals to the central authorities, opposing their annexation to the Ukrainian SSR. Because joining the Soviet Donbass was one thing, but joining Ukraine was quite another. After all, at that moment the Soviet Union had not yet been established. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and the Soviet Ukraine were de jure considered independent states, even if they entered into a military and economic alliance with each other.

At the same time, it is necessary to understand what processes were taking place inside Ukraine itself in order to understand why the residents of Eastern Donbass were far from enthusiastic about the prospect of becoming “Ukrainians”.
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25.05.2014 – The last day of peace in Donetsk

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The remembrance post on Russell ‘Texas’ Bentley’s Telegram channel, written by his widow, Lyudmila Bentley.

May 25, 2014 was the last peaceful day for the residents of Donetsk. The last day when residents and guests of the city walked, strolled quietly along the streets and airplanes flew. On this day it was possible. And tomorrow…

Donetsk residents consider May 26, 2014 as the line behind which the former Ukraine, which we loved, does not exist any more for us. On this day 10 years ago, Ukrainian helicopters and bombers, formally subordinate to the SBU, raided Donetsk International Airport and the suburbs of Donetsk itself. As a result, 40 people were killed and 31 were wounded.

Our city was attacked by Ukrainian warplanes. Su-25s, MiG-29s and Mi-24s shelled Donetsk.

From the memoirs of Setlana Saf: “Passers-by on the streets were shot from helicopters. The way to and from the airport turned out to be the ‘road of death’. For more than a week it was strewn with people killed in their cars, people killed near their cars, people shot in ambulances, people fleeing in the direction of the tree line not far from them… Those who were vacationing with their children near the reservoir of the Avdeyevka coking plant also came under fire from the helicopters. On the square near the railway station – killed… And the airport… It’s gone. Who will be responsible for that?”

“It was HELL! “The ‘non-brothers’ started killing us!!! To this day, at the sound of any flying object, be it a helicopter or an airplane, there is a feeling of fear and a desire to hide, to take cover. And this is despite the fact that I now live in the so-called safe zone… And this state will haunt those who lived through those terrible days for a long time. When will this nightmare finally end…? And who will be responsible for all this?” – Natalia Trofimenko.

“I remember everything like yesterday. Everything in front of my eyes… Airplanes, heat traps, hum, helicopters, horror, tears, misunderstanding, rejection…” – Galina Abramova.

“I remember how the helicopters flew over the schools and kindergartens of Oktyabrsky settlement. I remember the frightened eyes of the children – and not a single Ukrainian news bulletin reported it…” – Irina Chinkina.

“To this day, when I remember that day, I am gripped with fear and shaking, and tears are streaming from my eyes… How I was screaming then! I frightened my granddaughter, she ran after me, and in search of a hiding place I threw myself from side to side, until we hid behind the sofa in the hall… She clung to me trembling body and begged me to protect her. And the helicopters were circling over our house… A neighbor who lived three houses away from us was looking for her son for a long time, and then she couldn’t get him murdered out of the car for a few days … It was pretty hot, and the killed ones were laying on the road, shelled by snipers from all sides, for several days…” – Irina Isayenko.

In those days, I was in my native Petrovsky district. Being quite far from politics, I remember my incomprehensible thoughts: “What is going on? Who are those people? Why are the airplanes bombing us?”

Russell told me, he was at home in the U.S. at the time, closely following what was going on the Internet, and his heart was bleeding because he had known since Maidan that his government was behind it all. He knew and was tormented that he had to do something about it, not just watch. He will make the final decision to go to Donbass to protect civilians on June 2, 2014 after the Ukrainian Air Force air strike on the peaceful administration of Lugansk.

– Lyudmila Bentley

The repeat of Ukrainian-German incursion into Kursk

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With Kursk newly liberated, it is fitting to take a look at the past Ukro-“future-NATO” incursions into Kursk. From our August 2024 post at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Kursk region has become a historical singularity point. One might draw a parallel to the Battle of Kursk in 1943, when thinking of the present-day Western-backed incursion into Kursk. But there is an even earlier precedent, with an eerie similarity to today’s events.

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The dissolvement of the Russian Empire resulted in appearance of a number of states, proxy-states and lawless areas on its outskirts, which the foreign «interventionists» sought to use as springboards for further partitioning of Russia.

Baltics almost immediately fell under German control. Further south there appeared a Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR), which initially manifested the aspirations of the Ukrainian nationalists (Petlyura was one of its leaders), but later came under German control. Here is a fragment from the Big Russian Encyclopedia.

The UKRAINIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC (UPR), in 1917-20 (with a pause) a state entity, autonomous within the RSFSR, since 2.1.1918 independent. Proclaimed 20.11.1917 on the territory of Kiev, Podolsk, Volyn, Chernigov, Poltava, Harkov, Yekaterinoslav, Herson and Taurida (northern counties, without Crimea) provinces. The center is in Kiev.

The UPR was liquidated as a result of a coup organized by P. P. Skoropadsky on 29.4.1918 with the help of Germany. The command, Central Rada and the government were dissolved, the Ukrainian state was proclaimed instead of the UPR.

The UPR was restored on 14.12.1918 by the Ukrainian Directory, which became the highest authority of the republic.

With the beginning of the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, the UPR concluded a military agreement on the union with Poland on 21.4.1920.

It ceased to exist after the end of the war and the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, on the one hand, and Poland on the other. The government of the UPR (presided by A. N. Livitsky) fled to Poland.

If one looks at the attached map, one will notice how UPR lay claim on a much larger territory than it actually controlled – it desired the territory of the Donetsk-Krivorozhie People’s Republic.

However, they did not lay claim to the Kursk region. Nevertheless, a few days before Germany conducted a coup in UPR, a joint incursion into Kursk area was made, as can be read in the telegram, preserved In the «Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR», volume 1, 7th of November 1917 – 31st of December 1918, page 224:

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106. Telegram from the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs to the Council of People’s Ministers of Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany

April 3, 1918.

A message has just been received that Ukrainian-German troops have entered the Kursk province. The People’s Committee for Foreign Affairs protests against the occupation of the undisputedly Russian territory; even according to the unilateral statement of the Ukrainian delegation, Kursk province is located outside the borders of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

— People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, Chicherin

Printed according to the archived publication of newspaper «Izvestia» No. 65(329), April 3, 1918

April 14 is the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Ukrainian Aggression

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Read also: How the undeclared war in Ukraine started and flamed up in April of 2014.

From the Telegram channel of the Information Center of the Investigative Committee of Russia, translated by “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”:

In 2014, the Ukrainian authorities decided to launch the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” in Donbas. In fact, their goal was to destroy civilians who did not recognize the Kiev authorities and decided to determine their own fate. All these years, residential buildings, schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities in Donbass have been systematically shelled by the armed formations of Ukraine from artillery and multiple rocket launchers.

For 11 years, Donbass has been the target of brutal and cynical attacks by the Kiev regime, funded by NATO countries that supply military aid to the Ukrainian side, and mercenaries. All these years, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has been recording crimes committed by Ukrainian armed groups.

More than 6.5 thousand criminal cases have been initiated, including crimes against the peace and security of mankind, personality and property.

Investigators and criminologists of the Investigative Committee of Russia, including in the conditions of military operations, carry out tremendous work: the testimony of thousands of victims and witnesses is recorded, objects that have been bombed are examined, and other evidence of criminal acts of the AFU is collected and procedurally secured.

The investigation of more than four hundred criminal cases has already been completed, in which over 560 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries have been brought to justice. More than 500 criminals have already been convicted, 62 of them have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The materials of thousands of criminal cases documenting these tragic events are needed not only to bring the perpetrators to justice, but also for history, so that future generations would remember what the residents of Donbass went through defending their land.

Employees of the Investigative Committee of Russia on an ongoing basis provide humanitarian assistance to local residents and participants of their activities, and take part in resolving legal issues. Departmental educational institutions have been established and operate in the region, including orphans and children left without the care of close relatives.

From DonbassNews Telegram channel, with more photographic testimonies to #NoGenocideInDonbass:

🥀Today is the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Ukrainian Aggression

Residents of Donbass have been held at gunpoint by the Nazis for 11 years. The Kiev regime, following the orders of NATO’s “mentors,” continues terrorist attacks and conducts an information war without hesitation in choosing its means.

⚖️Today, more than 6.5 thousand criminal cases have been initiated against the Ukrainian Nazis. More than 500 criminals have been convicted, 62 of them will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Not a single victim of the Kiev regime will be forgotten. Not a single criminal will escape punishment

They “survived incorrectly”. A Mariupol resident telling about how AFU “buried” own Ukrainian artists.

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🕯 March 16, marks three years since the terrible tragedy in Mariupol – the explosion in the Drama Theatre

Ukrainian militants lured people there to stage another provocation, blaming Russia. But those who miraculously managed to survive on March 16, 2022, remember who exactly is to blame for the death of their loved ones.

Our correspondent Irina Yefremova recalled together with eyewitnesses what the Drama Theatre looks like today and who actually blew it up.


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Text source: Eva Karene Bartlett
Video source: “Vesti Donetsk”, with our added translation

From our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Commemorating this tragedy, we are publishing a translation of an article from “Argumenty i Fakty”, dated August 3, 2022.

They “survived incorrectly”. A Mariupol resident telling about how AFU “buried” own Ukrainian artists.

Actor Damir Sukhov spent the entire active phase of the fighting for Mariupol in the building of the drama theatre, which was then blown up by Ukrainian militants. In the interview to aif.ru he told about how the Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the theatre on a bet, and the Azov militants took cars away from people.

Dmitry Grigoriev, aif.ru: — Damir, tell me a little about yourself.

Damir Sukhov: — I was born in St. Petersburg, but grew up in Ukraine. Here I studied at the theatric school, but then returned to St. Petersburg, continuing theatrical education there. I starred in films in Russia for a while, and returned to Ukraine in 2016. The I lived with my family in Berdyansk and simultaneously acted in films in Kiev. Russian actors are in high demand in Ukraine, as most of the films shot there were sold to Russia.

— When did you arrive in Mariupol?

— I finished filming a big TV series in Kiev and came to Berdyansk. It is important to understand that Berdyansk is a small town compared to Mariupol, where there were much more opportunities for the development of the child and for my wife and me. I decided to move to Mariupol and started working at the Drama Theatre, and at the same time decided to launch a film school here. My wife was supposed to arrive later. We rented a room, started making repairs, purchased equipment, and even recruited the first students. I moved here in January 2022, just a month before the start of the special operation. In fact, I just got used to Mariupol, and this nightmare began.

The authorities of Mariupol fled the city before the start of the SMO

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Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine, 17.02.2025 – Repost

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This is probably the strongest condemnation of the “civilised West” to date. Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Ukraine is available in English at the site of the “Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN”. Video in Russian is available at their Telegram channel.

Before reading on, do watch the following three short videos:


Backup at Rumble.


Backup at Rumble.


Backup at Rumble.

Main statement:

Mr. President,

We thank Roger Waters for his statement with an analysis of the history of the Ukrainian crisis and assessments of the significance of the Minsk agreements with regard to the relevant diplomatic efforts.

Today marks ten years since the adoption of UNSC resolution 2202, which endorsed the “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”. Having thus expressed its support for the solutions that had been found in Minsk a few days prior, the Council took the implementation of these agreements under its supervision. We all hoped then that a long-term and lasting peace would finally come, but all hopes of ours were fated to fail. Moreover, today the very word-combination “Minsk agreements” has become something of a diplomatic euphemism replacing the words “failure” or “lie”. We believe that our Security Council has every reason to analyze why this happened and why peace in the east of Ukraine never came after that.

First of all, let me briefly recall that the 13 points of the Package of Measures unambiguously defined the sequence of concrete steps to normalize the situation in Ukraine and bring Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LNR and DNR) back to Ukraine’s fold. The last of these steps was to restore Kiev’s control over the State border in the east of the country. For this to happen, the Ukrainian leadership needed to undertake a number of measures geared towards granting the LNR and the DNR broader autonomy and protecting the identity of the Russian-speaking population.
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Pokrovsk 2025 – Only Russians live here

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In Pokrovsk, a Euronews film crew recorded a local resident who, like many others, refuses to evacuate to Ukrainian territory


Backup at Rumble.

During the interview it became clear that no one is afraid of the arrival of the Russian army and the capture of Pokrovsk, because “by passport they are Ukrainians, but in their souls they are Russians.”

In conclusion it was said that “there are no Ukrainians here, everyone is Russian.”

The look on the Euronews journalist’s face at the end is priceless.

Source: Slavyangrad

Meanwhile:

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are preparing a new counteroffensive in the Donetsk People’s Republic. They have accumulated units near Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) and intend to deliver an unexpected blow. The Kiev regime has set the task of recapturing lithium mines that American President Donald Trump has set his sights on, Russian experts believe.

Military expert Valery Shiryaev announced the accumulation of Ukrainian troops south of Krasnoarmeysk. According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ attack in the Kursk region, which began on February 6 and did not produce any significant results, has another purpose – to conceal the preparation of an offensive in another area.

Source: AiF

“I’m Alive!” – The Strange Case of Russell Bentley

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A translation of an article, appearing at Tsargrad.tv on the 14th of December 2024.

“I’m alive!”: The strange case of Russell Bentley — the perpetrators did not appear in court. The murdered militia member appeared to his friends in a dream

On December 5, the trial pertaining to “the case of Russell Bentley” — an American volunteer with the call sign Texas — commenced in the garrison court of Donetsk. In 2014, he burned bridges in the United States, came to fight for Donbass, and participated in the battles for Donetsk airport. And on April 8, 2024, he was killed in Donetsk. By our own people. Four servicemen from the 5th motorized Infantry brigade of the DPR, including one of its commanders Vitaly Vansyatsky, are being tried for this crime. A journalist from Tsargrad called Lyudmila Bentley, Russell’s wife, to find out the details of the trial, and found out an amazing fact. Texas appeared almost simultaneously in a dream to three of his loved ones and uttered the same phrase: “I’m alive!”

The call was answered by the probable killer

So, there are four defendants in the dock: Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Andrey Iordanov and Vladimir Bazhin. Surprisingly, they are all Donetsk residents, from Makeyevka…

This means that they couldn’t possibly not know Russell Bentley, who was a “landmark” of the DPR — not only a well-known militia member, but also a journalist, musician, and a frequent guest on local TV. And therefore, to detain, torture, kill Russell, and then methodically destroy his remains, you have to be either very unscrupulous or very stoned.

One has to wonder what the law enforcement system should be like, in order to impute part 5 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code for such a crime (abuse of official authority resulting in death by negligence)?

It is also interesting that when Lyudmila Bentley did not yet know where her husband had disappeared, she called Vansyatsky, unaware that the person on the other end of the line was the likely the killer of Russell. Vansyatsky said at the time that he knew nothing about any Bentley.

Recall that on April 8, Russell and Lyudmila arrived at the administration of the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, where the American was called to extend his monthly minimum social security (7,300 rubles).

At that moment, the arrival of the HIMARS happened nearby, and Texas rushed there by car to help possible victims (in Donetsk, many people do this in similar situations), but before reaching the place of arrival, he was stopped and then taken somewhere by the military. (Tsargrad described the whole situation in detail).

“Their motive is still unclear. I don’t see any logic in their actions. Russell always had with him a standard set of documents certifying his identity: a Russian passport with a residence permit in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, a military ID card, a weapon permit, several journalistic certificates (at that time Bentley was a military correspondent of the Sputnik agency — the one headed by Margarita Simonyan and Dmitry Kiselyov). Establishing his identity was not a problem. They say that Russell tried to call someone. Of course, he did. To call me. We agreed that in some difficult situations, he calls, and I translate on the phone – I facilitate his dialogue with people with whom there is a problem. This was the case, for example, with a car repair technician. But this time they didn’t let him call. The phone was smashed so that it lay on the ground smoking. Where is the logic? If they suspected that he was some kind of spy, it would be logical to protect the phone like the apple of your eye to check contacts and correspondence”
— says Lyudmila Bentley.

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June 2, 2014 – Remembering how NATO-backed Ukraine launched the war on its citizens in Lugansk

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To those who still not understood:


Backup at Rumble.

From Russell Bentley’s Telegram channel:

On June 2, 2014, an AFU Su-25 aircraft struck the monumental building of the Luhansk Regional Administration and the square in front of it with unguided rockets. Eight residents of the LPR were killed. A total of about 20 munitions were fired at Luhansk that day.

Before that, there was the killing of Berkut special forces in Kiev, the shooting of buses with Crimeans near the city of Korsun, the killing of dozens of Odessa residents in the House of Trade Unions, the shooting of Mariupol residents on Victory Day, May 26 Donetsk Airport.

The symbol of that day, June 2, 2014, was the “woman in red” – Inna Kukuruza. Her last minutes of life after her legs were practically torn off were captured on video by a local resident who came running to the scene of the shelling.
Not everyone will find the strength to watch this video. But those who saw it will not forget her eyes, looking into the camera, will never forget her death throes.

In addition to the Regional State Administration, bombs were dropped on the square named after the Heroes of the Great Patriotic War and the parking lot.
Behind the administrative building there were multi-storey residential buildings, kindergarten “Zhuravlik”, a few dozen meters from the place of shelling there was a playground where children were playing.

Ukrainian politicians who came to power as a result of a neo-Nazi coup d’état, under the flags of Nazis and fascists, supported by the United States and Europe, sent volunteer battalions of neo-Nazis and the AFU army to Donbass with one goal – to conquer, to bring Donbass to its knees. And if it fails – there was an order to kill, to cleanse Donbass from the unruly.

For 10 years of civil war in Ukraine, unleashed by neo-Nazis and Banderaites, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians died and disappeared without a trace! Tens of millions have fled Ukraine. Today Ukraine is a concentration camp with a ruined economy, total corruption of the elites and total mobilization of ordinary Ukrainians for using them in so called “meat” assaults!

And Donbass…
Today Donbass is Russia! Militia with great combat experience have become soldiers of the Armed Forces of Russia, who are cleansing Ukraine from neo-Nazi filth!

“There was a video made in the aftermath of that airstrike. She was sitting on the street, in a pool of blood, next to her legs, both of her legs had been blown off by the rockets… And there was a photograph made from that video of her sitting on the ground looking straight up into the camera. And when I saw that photo, I knew for sure I was coming here.”

— Russell ‘Texas’ Bentley

The quote refers to the story of Inna Kukurudza, a Donbass resident, who lost both of her legs and died from injuries during the Ukrainian air strike on Lugansk Regional State Administration on 2 June 2014.

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