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85 Years Since the Tragedy of Babi Yar: “They Were All Soviet Citizens, Murdered by Fascists”

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Words of remembrance by historian, Yaroslav Listov.

September 29th marks the 85th anniversary of the beginning of mass shootings at the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev. While it has become an exclusive symbol of the Jewish Holocaust in the post-Soviet era, the tragedy that occurred here was deeper, more extensive, and more devastating.

🕯️ The shootings at Babi Yar did not begin with Jews. Just days before the tragedy of September 29-30, 1941, the Nazis murdered 752 patients from the Ivan Pavlov psychiatric hospital, which was located near the ravine. Hundreds of people were shot, unable to escape, hide, or understand what was happening.

🕯️ Then it was Kiev’s turn. On September 29, 1941, an order was posted throughout the city: all Jews were to gather on the outskirts. In two days, approximately 60,000 people were exterminated in the ravines of Babi Yar.

🕯️ Among the victims were tens of thousands of Jews – from the elderly to children of Kiev, but they were not the only victims of fascism. In Babi Yar, partisans, communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters, and prisoners of war – Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, and people of other nationalities from the vast Soviet Union – were shot. The “factory of death” operated throughout the entire period of German occupation.

🕯️ On January 10, 1942, approximately 100 sailors from the Dniepropetrovsk Detachment of the Pinsk Military Flotilla were executed here. They were driven through the frost naked and barefoot, and they sang «The Internationale» before their deaths.

🕯️ Babi Yar became the site of the execution of five Gypsy camps.

🕯️ Near Babi Yar, the Syrets KZ camp was established, where communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters, prisoners of war, and others were held. At least 25,000 people died there.

An experimental soap factory was set up in Babi Yar to produce soap from the murdered. The Germans did not manage to complete its construction.
Prisoners were used for the most horrific task – burning the corpses. Semyon Berlyant, one of those who worked near the furnaces, testified:

“All of us, 180 people, worked (in Babi Yar) chained in iron. People literally collapsed and could not work. The gendarmerie beat these people with sticks and rifle butts… and shot and burned them in these furnaces.”

⚡️ As they retreated from Kiev and tried to hide their crimes, the Nazis partially destroyed the camp in August-September 1943, digging up and burning tens of thousands of corpses in the open “furnaces.” The bones were crushed in machines brought from Germany, and the ashes were scattered around the area.

⛓️ On the night of September 29, 1943, a rebellion broke out in Babi Yar involving 329 prisoner-of-war inmates who were working near the furnaces. 18 people survived. The remaining 311 were shot.

🗣️ The memories of witnesses are chilling:
Nadezhda Gorbacheva, a resident of Kiev:

“I personally saw Germans throwing infants into the ravine. There were not only those who had been shot in the ravine, but also the wounded, as well as living children. The Germans were burying the ravine, and it was noticeable how a small layer of earth moved from the movement of living people.”

Dina Pronicheva, an actress who miraculously survived:

“I saw women, old people, and children being undressed group by group… They were all led to an open pit, and machine gunners shot them… I saw this horror with my own eyes…
Young people became gray before my eyes.”

Raisa Dashkevich, who lost her entire family:

“The procession was terrifying – a stream of thousands of people doomed to death was moving towards Babi Yar. There was still hope that they would be sent somewhere… but when they were ordered to undress and led to this ravine – our grave – everyone realised that it was the end.”

🕯️ According to various estimates, between 100,000 and 200,000 people were shot in Babi Yar between 1941 and 1943. People of different nationalities. Different views. Different destinies.
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Were the events of August of 1991 a coup d’état?

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

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

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

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

Was There a Coup?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

«Mission to Moscow»

A new American film

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

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

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

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

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

— Tin soldiers, he said of the Germans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Two Missions of Joseph Davies

The bestseller of the 40s

Davies and Stalin in May of 1943

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s take a closer look at each frame!


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



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

⚡️⚡️⚡️

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

⚡️⚡️⚡️

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

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

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



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



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


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


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Fritz the Forerunner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

As Vasilyev says:

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

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

Does Merz’ Germany have such a chance?

Burning of the Reichstag 1933. Germany / Mono Print

FALSE FLAG METHODOLOGY, THEN AND NOW

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

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

Drawing by A. Gorbarukov

I. The Starting Point — The Moldavian SSR

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

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

II. Chronology of 35 Years

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

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


Backup at Rumble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their hypocritical policy continues today, taking increasingly grotesque forms:

Instead of mediation – arms supplies.

Instead of seeking compromise – ultimatums.

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

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

Read in full (in Russian)

Online Course “The Road to Victory”

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

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

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

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

Watch the series in English. 👇

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode 7 – Guerrilla Warfare: Operation Concert

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Onwards, Comrades!”

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Reading time: 3 minutes

“Onwards, comrades!” is a Chinese cartoon capturing the essence of the last days of the USSR and what is to come next. This masterful animation was created in 2013 by a student of Beijing university, Wang Yilin, as her graduation work.


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You will see the title translated to English by the author as “Farewell, my comrades!” from the Russian “Вперёд!”, but that is not right, as the word “farewell” is associated nowadays with parting and not with wishing someone a steadfast journey ahead, which we have in the Russian title.

It’s difficult for a European to judge what the author wanted to say. It’s enough to know a little about Chinese culture to assume that the film contains many symbols and hidden meanings, and what a European might see as a meaningless, random fragment could actually carry a crucial semantic load. Another important feature of Chinese cultural tradition is that it’s not customary to express oneself “directly”, so a story can have multiple interpretations and layers of meaning. But which ones exactly, how many, and to what extent – it’s hard to judge. China is vast and diverse.

With that in mind, the cartoon has many levels of allegory and the viewer can perceive it as both simple and complex at the same time. There are some odd anachronisms, like the sat dish on the village house, while other imagery is true to its time.

Here is a comment by one viewer, Grigory Sinolitsky, who gives a good interpretation of the visual elements:

A very important point in the cartoon is the toy cubes, from which the girl built her house (her future plans). These are worldview, cultural, moral, etc. blocks that are formed during the upbringing of every person.

During the “Perestroika” (restructuring), the girl (essentially an image of the Soviet people) finds herself in new conditions and discovers that her old toy cubes (values) are being replaced by new bright “glamorous” toy-values, so as not to stand out from everyone else “or they’ll laugh at us”. This substitution is carried out by the girl’s mother (an image of the elite), who previously destroyed the house the girl-people was building, refused to communicate with her and forced her to move to new (civilised) conditions. The mother “sold” the books (an image of culture, ideology, and the education system – a Russian dictionary) for a pittance. The mother (the elite) continues to ignore the girl, not noticing her problems and concerns. She fixates on the unimportant (“shampoo… From America! It protects the skin very well…”).

When the girl (the people) rethought all this, she realised that her mother (the elite) had betrayed her – “I’ll tell everyone – mom betrayed us! They all betrayed us.” And she flees from the new (European-civilised) conditions and finds herself on the brink of war. She sees that those she thought were dead (symbolic images of power structures, the army, intelligence…) are alive and ready to perform their functions. She herself has to take up arms (rebuilding the army) and stand on a foundation of cubes (non-material values), including for their protection (a mountain of cubes behind the girl with an automatic weapon).

And then, there is more!

The one cube, hidden by Beriya (who, like Stalin, became demonised) can represent the hidden grain of Socialism, preserved within humanity, for it it come back after the wreck of flirting with Capitalism.

The cartoon was also prophetic. It came in 2013, a year before the US-backed Nazism reared it ugly head in the Ukraine, forewarning that in 2022 Russia will be forced to take up arms, drawing strength from the memory of the Great Patriotic War that the images in the final credits reference.

The cartoon with audio in Russian


Backup at Rumble.
Raw video source on YouTube.

The images in the final credits and the photos from the Great Patriotic War that served as their models

The Hasty Withdrawal of the Soviet Troops from the GDR and the Warsaw Pact Countries. The Consequences.

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Reading time: 24 minutes

Before you is an account of the withdrawal of Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In a 2025 interview to State TV and Radio of Iran, Lavrov rightly called it a betrayal:

“The German authorities, as conquerors, took control of all the lands of the former GDR, and all political figures were “removed” from the road. No future was offered to them. It was a takeover, not a merger.”

This publication consists of four overlapping articles, which we decided to present as is, for each article gives additional insights. More photos from that fateful time can be viewed here.

But first, how it all began…

June 10, 1945 – Based on the Directive of the Supreme High Command No. 11095 of May 29, 1945, the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany was established

May 9, 1945 — The Great Patriotic War ended victoriously. For the subsequent demilitarisation and denazification of Germany, as well as to protect the interests of the USSR in Europe, on June 10, 1945, the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany was formed on the basis of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts. The commander-in-chief of the GSOFG was Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. In addition, he led the Soviet Military Administration established by the USSR Council of People’s Commissars to manage the liberated territories.

The Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (from 1954 — Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, GSFG) carried out the protection of the border of the Soviet occupation zone, participated in measures to eliminate the fascist regime, and in the 1950s became the main unit of the Soviet Army, which was to deliver a crushing blow to NATO forces and liberate Western Europe in the event of a new war in Europe. The GSFG was the main guarantor of the inviolability of post-war borders in Europe and ensuring the security and peaceful life of socialist European states.

The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany existed until 1994. As a result of the betrayal of Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet Union pledged in 1990 to withdraw troops from Germany. The final withdrawal of troops was carried out in August 1994. A significant part of military property, including real estate, was left in Germany by the Russian leadership and received compensation of about 385 million dollars, while the real value of the property was approximately 7.3 billion dollars. A huge number of small arms, tanks, aircraft, helicopters, armoured vehicles were looted and sold to foreign countries.

With the cessation of the existence of the GSFG, security in Europe was put at risk. Taking advantage of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany, the United States and its NATO allies began to implement a policy of “expanding the alliance to the east”. The accession of Eastern European states to the alliance significantly weakened Russia’s defence capability and its geopolitical positions.

Source: CPRF

The humiliating withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1994 from Germany into the open field

It was the last day of August 1994, when the last military units leaving Germany marched in Berlin’s Treptow Park in the presence of thousands of spectators, as well as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

The Russian leader was drunk, and he delivered a heartfelt speech in which he emphasised that “there were neither winners nor losers in the war between Russia and Germany”. But it didn’t seem enough to him – if you party, go all out. He came down from the podium, took the baton from the conductor of the police orchestra and while “conducting” made the musicians play “Kalinka-Malinka”, while soloing into the microphone loudest of all.

It was a bitter scene of humiliation, as the liberating and victorious army, through the fault of a short-sighted politician, left like an unwelcome guest.
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35 Years Without the Union – memories of the bygone time in the GDR

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Reading time: 11 minutes

As part of the project “35 Years without the USSR”, corresponded Georgy Zotov visited Germany, looking for the memories of the not so distant past. The article below appeared in “Argumenty i Fakty” on March 20, 2026.

“It was a nightmare and a murder.” The sad fate of beloved in the USSR goods from the GDR

Do you remember the Madonna tea set, the Florena cream, the toy railroad?

…About ten years ago, I visited the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt, which is now called Chemnitz. Once upon a time, the main industry of the GDR was concentrated there. I saw a center full of Arab immigrants, repainting the facades of panel houses (to make them look brighter and more cheerful), and dilapidated factories that used to produce products that were the pride of the socialist camp. Some of them were sold to new owners, then they went bankrupt, unable to withstand the competition. Some of them were abandoned immediately, the workers were fired, and all the equipment was stolen from them. A huge amount of goods from the GDR were sold in the USSR — I myself had a toy railway from the GDR as a child, and my mother used East German Florena cream, buying it in the Leipzig store. When I was in the former GDR, I tried to find out what was left of those brands, and whether the names of streets and cities had changed everywhere, as in the case of the well—known Karl-Marx-Stadt?

The Museum of the GDR

Sold, fired, closed

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“The USSR was the Sun.” Interview with the last Secretary General of the GDR, Egon Krenz, by Georgy Zotov

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Reading time: 14 minutes

As part of the project “35 Years without the USSR” (#ZotovUSSR35), Georgy Zotov interviewed the last Secretary General of the GDR, Egon Krenz. In leu of introduction, here is the greeting from Egon Krenz, posted by Georgy Zotov a few days before the interview itself was published:

– Dear friends! I am sending you from Germany the most sincere greetings and wishes of all the best.
I was often in the Soviet Union, even studied for three and a half years in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union for me was always like a second homeland, and you can say it was like the Sun for me. I am very sorry that the Soviet Union is gone, but my friendly feelings for the people of the Russian Federation are very close to me and I love Russia. All the best!

– Thank you very much.

Kirill Brenner acted as a translator, and commented thus his impression of the interview at his Telegram channel:

…I was also present in this room at that moment and helped with the translation (Krenz spoke most of the time in German, sometimes switching to Russian). But despite the fact that Krenz is slightly confused in endings and cases – it’s been a long time since he had a conversational practice – he speaks Russian better than I do in German…

In an interview with the columnist of the DarkZotovLand Telegram channel, the former leader of the German Democratic Republic, 89-year-old Egon Krenz, expressed amazing things about the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

– Comrade Krenz, what exactly did you feel when you came to the USSR for the first time in your life?

– The best feeling was that I was treated with great kindness. I just turned 18, and I got to the Soviet Union on the Friendship train. People were so happy to see us! But I am a German, I belong to a nation of former enemies: only ten years have passed since the bloody war, the year is 1955. But we were greeted with joy, as if we were old friends, and this made a great impression on me and other young Germans.

– What surprised you most about the Soviet Union then?
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The Unknown Cold War. Film 3. The Abduction of Europe… and the world. An RT documentary

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Reading time: < 1 minute

This film looks into the key events that kicked off the Cold War.


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After the Second World War, US President Harry Truman wanted to establish America as the world’s leading power and contain the spread of communism. Consequently, the US launched a large-scale economic aid programme for the devastated countries of Western Europe dubbed ‘The Marshall Plan’, but the aid came with strings attached that primarily benefited the United States.

America’s post-war strategy was unacceptable to the Soviet Union. It violated earlier Allied agreements on the demilitarisation of Germany and the restoration of European sovereignty. Furthermore, Moscow was unwilling to lose its own influence in the region. Stalin warned that the new US plan would only divide Europe and could provoke further conflicts around the world.

Driven by an intense fear of communism, the United States went on to fuel several other conflicts. One after another, wars broke out in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East – all of which turned into bloody and prolonged struggles due to US involvement. The Berlin Wall was built, separating Germany into US and Soviet zones, and an Iron Curtain descended between Western and Eastern Europe.

👉 Watch also “Film 1 — The Unthinkable Allies”.
👉 Watch also “Film 2 — The Truman Delay”.