The West is seeking to break up Russia into dozens of small, weak states, former Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said.

Shoigu, who currently serves as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, made the remarks in an op-ed published in Argumenty i Fakty on Tuesday, ahead of National Unity Day, celebrated on November 4.

He warned that “adversaries falsely believe” Russia’s ethnically diverse makeup is its weakness, arguing that attempts to sow division would fail due to the strength of Russian society.

“The attacks on our history, culture, and spiritual values continue unabated, alongside attempts to undermine the harmony and brotherhood among our nations,” Shoigu wrote.

“Their goal is the de-sovereigntization of our country. They seek to divide our motherland into dozens of statelets,” the ex-minister added. “The West cannot grasp the essence of Russian interethnic relations, the moral strength, and the unity of our multiethnic nation – qualities that enable us to stand resolute against destructive geopolitical methods.”

Although ethnic Russians make up around 80% of the country’s population, Russia is home to more than 100 ethnic minorities, as well as seven Muslim-majority and two Buddhist-majority regions.

Since 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has adopted several resolutions calling for the “decolonization” of Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the move, accusing PACE of spreading “Russophobia” and “neocolonial chauvinism.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/627038-russian-shoigu-ethnicities-west/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

Zelensky’s Top Man Is a Big Problem
One threat to Ukraine’s democracy is coming from inside the house.

BY Andrew Day

 

U.S. policy on Russia–Ukraine seems to vacillate depending on which foreign leader President Donald Trump lately deems the biggest irritant and obstacle to peace: Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky or Russia’s Vladimir Putin. But Trump should from time to time direct his frustrations against a lesser-known figure: Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff and right-hand man. Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Yermak has become as powerful as the Ukrainian president, if not more so.

Yermak has wielded his enormous influence in the Zelensky government to controlthe flow of information between Kiev’s leadership and Western capitals about the war; to push a hardline negotiating stance that many analysts consider counter-productive; and to sideline ministers in a bid to control Ukraine’s diplomatic channels. He has also sought to marginalize figures and institutions crucial to the war effort, including Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence. The agency’s respected and battle-hardened chief, Kyrylo Budanov, reportedly has faced repeated attempts by Yermak to elbow him out of government.

Yermak’s profound and peculiar influence over Zelensky raises broader concerns that go beyond the present war. The two men rallied Ukrainians in the early weeks of Putin’s invasion, bravely refusing to flee the country and even defiantly proclaiming their continued presence, but these days, their cloistered partnership increasingly threatens a fundamental value for which the Ukrainians are fighting: Western-style democracy. Yermak has branded critics of Zelensky as Russian stooges, weaponized government institutions against domestic political enemies, obstructed Ukraine’s campaign against corruption, and according to critics created a new system of oligarchy.

Yermak’s story didn’t begin in the world of politics. He was an attorney, film producer, and occasional importer of luxury fashion products when he first met Zelensky—at the time, a comedian and actor—in 2011. The two hit it off, with Yermak, who is single and childless, later saying he had admired how Zelensky talked about family life. In 2019, Yermak worked on Zelensky’s presidential election campaign and, after a decisive victory, became a top foreign policy advisor in the new administration. The next year, Yermak was appointed head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, a position he has transformed into a bottleneck of the Zelensky government. 

By all accounts, Zelensky and Yermak are inseparable friends and confidants. The pro-Ukrainian journalist Christopher Miller of the Financial Times, in a profile of Yermak published this July, reported that the two men even sleep near each other in the president’s bunker, often after a night playing table tennis or watching classic movies. In the early mornings, they lift weights together, with the hulking, six-foot-plus Yermak presumably adding more plates to the barbell than the diminutive Zelensky. Afterwards, Yermak labors intensely for many hours in his office, two floors below the president’s. “There’s now no path to Zelensky that bypasses Yermak,” one former chief of staff to a Ukrainian president told Miller. “And that’s the problem.”

When Zelensky arrived at DC two weeks ago for yet another White House meeting with Trump, Yermak was there on the tarmac, “welcoming” the Ukrainian leader as he deplaned. And there he was during the working lunch with Trump’s inner circle, sitting on Zelensky’s right. In the weeks prior, Yermak had been active behind the scenes, preparing the Ukrainian team for yet another White House meeting and expressing the hope—a false hope, as it turned out—that Trump was ready to give Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles. (Yermak also had pushed for the White House meeting in February—the disastrous one now known as the “blowup” in the Oval Office.)

 

Several analysts took the recent meeting—which degenerated into a shouting match behind closed doors—as evidence that Yermak misreads DC and gives poor advice on how to manage relations with the White House. They pointed also to Zelensky’s meeting with the heads of hawkish American think tanks—most of which oppose Trump’s brand of MAGA conservatism—an apparent waste of precious time and possible annoyance to White House officials who favor foreign-policy restraint.

This line of criticism isn’t new. In June, POLITICO reported on U.S. elites’ bipartisan disdain for Yermak and the widely held view that he is “uninformed about U.S. politics, abrasive and overly demanding with U.S. officials.”

Still, however much antipathy he may draw from U.S. elites, Yermak is a savvy political operator, and ultimately he and Zelensky got much of what they wanted from their trip. Though Trump passed on providing Tomahawks, the presidential pendulum swung back against Russia. A previously announced Trump–Putin summit in Budapest was put on ice, the U.S. lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s launching Western-provided missiles into Russia, and Trump announced the first sanctions against Moscow of his second term. 

 

But while Yermak may succeed in scoring political wins and advancing a hopeful narrative of approaching victory over Russia, that narrative increasingly is contradicted by the worsening battlefield situation. For all Yermak’s successes at securing Western support, his machinations arguably have made any future diplomatic resolution with Russia less likely. And without a negotiated settlement, Ukraine is unlikely to survive as a sovereign and democratic, albeit truncated, state. 

Consider the Ukrainians’ insistence on a trilateral leaders’ meeting with Trump, Zelensky, and Putin. The demand has agitated the Kremlin, which favors preparatory meetings to hammer out details before the three presidents convene to sign an agreement. Some American experts also recommend a series of lower-level meetings to pave the way for a peace summit. After all, it’s rather unlikely that the three presidents, if they met to finalize a post-war settlement, could find agreement on tricky issues, such as how wide a demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine should be.

But Trump himself has embraced headline-grabbing, presidential-level discussions, creating an opportunity for Kiev. By insisting on such a summit, the Ukrainian government can present itself as cooperative with the American president and Putin as an intransigent opponent of diplomacy. Yermak has masterfully exploited that opportunity, but he has thereby helped delay the long and arduous diplomatic process that may be necessary to end a war that continues to devastate Ukraine.

 

Yermak also racks up short-term political wins in the cut-throat game of Ukrainian domestic politics. During the 2019 campaign, Zelensky was surrounded by a retinue of loyal and competent underlings, many of whom have been discarded as Yermak eliminates political rivals and secures promotions for personal allies to top positions. He is also widely believed to have engineered the ouster of Valery Zaluzhny—who became a political threat to Zelensky after achieving almost mythic popularity commanding Ukraine’s military early in the war—sending him to London, where he serves as an ambassador. 

After the Oval Office blowup in February, Vice President J.D. Vance’s office reached out to Zaluzhny, seeing him as a potential replacement for Zelensky, but Yermak convinced the former general to reject the calls. The episode illustrates that the White House cannot rein in Zelensky without attending to the equally powerful Yermak, who has demonstrated real political acumen.

But Yermak’s personal political victories have eroded Ukraine’s fragile democracy, neutering its parliament and other representative institutions. “We don’t have a proper functioning Cabinet of ministers,” Daria Kaleniuk, head of the Anti-Corruption Action NGO, told POLITICO. “Instead, we have some quasi-Cabinet of ministers headed by Yermak, who controls access to the president’s agenda and to the president himself.”

As Yermak has thrown his weight around in Kiev’s political arena, ordinary Ukrainians outside the halls of power have taken note. After Zelensky signed a law constraining the independence of anti-corruption watchdogs in July—a power grab devised and implemented by Yermak—street protesters made clear which man they thought most deserved their opprobrium. “Yermak out!” they chanted. “F— Yermak!” Facing political blowback, Zelensky reversed the move. Suspicions of stifling corruption investigations have long surrounded Yermak and contributed to Ukrainians’ distrust of him; a government case against his younger brother Denys for bribery was secretly closed in 2021.

A divide between Yermak and the Ukrainian people has also emerged on the question of how the war should end. A strong majority of Ukrainians—69 percent—say Kiev should seek to negotiate with Russia to end the war as soon as possible, according to a recent Gallup survey. Only 24 percent said the Ukrainian government should fight until victory. Nevertheless, Yermak shoots down talk of making concessions to Moscow and constricts Kiev’s diplomatic strategy. In an article published last year in Foreign Affairs, Yermak laid out his vision of Ukraine’s path to peace. “Step One: Win the War.”

To be sure, Putin may never settle for any outcome to the war other than Ukraine’s total military capitulation. But as the war grinds on toward that dreary outcome, the Ukrainians should be ready to embrace good-faith, sub-presidential negotiations in case the Kremlin decides it wants peace. Moreover, the Ukrainians need to prepare for what would follow a negotiated settlement: Years weeding out systemic corruption, shoring up Ukraine’s representative institutions, and finally making a clean break with post-Soviet structures of oligarchic authority.

Judging by his contributions throughout the war, Yermak, if he remained a powerful figure after its resolution, would impede Ukraine’s efforts to achieve each of those goals. As the Trump administration appraises threats to the Ukrainian state, they should find ways to outmaneuver not only the president in Moscow, but the man who runs the Office of the President in Kiev.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/zelenskys-top-man-is-a-big-problem/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

Ukraine’s Frontline Unravelling: The End Is Near

Phil Butler

Ukraine’s conflict is shifting from a stalemate to structural unraveling, as Russian forces exploit Kyiv’s overextension and Western fatigue to dictate both tempo and terrain....

  We keep hearing the same headlines: “stalemate,” “war of attrition,” “Ukraine holds the line.” Yet recent signals suggest the story isn’t merely attrition but something deeper—a tactical unraveling of the front. The drumbeat of rhetoric hides a widening gap where Kyiv’s concentration of effort in Donbas and Kharkiv may be undermining its broader defensive integrity. Two interconnected threads now demand attention: Russian operations achieving tactical surprise in sectors presumed stable and growing strategic fragility across a 1,200-kilometer contact line that stretches from Kharkiv to Zaporizhzhia.

Donbas and the Northeast

In the northeast, the region around Kharkiv and Kupiansk has quietly turned into one of the most dangerous zones for Ukraine. Reports note that Russian forces launched significant attacks north of Kharkiv and near Vovchansk around mid-October, with local evacuations ordered as artillery intensified. Hundreds of families were moved from settlements around Kupiansk, signaling not just tactical loss but an erosion of control.

The cumulative effect is clear: what was once considered a stable border area is now under genuine pressure. While the spotlight remains on Donbas, Russian units are probing and advancing in Kharkiv, exploiting precisely the gap created by Ukrainian focus elsewhere. In conflict on this scale, the simplest rule often holds—when one front is weighted, another weakens.

History’s verdict may be simple: the empire that tried to divide Russia instead divided itself—politically, economically, and morally 

On the Donetsk–Pokrovsk–Dobropillia axis, Kyiv appears to be doubling down. Counteroffensives there seem less designed to shift lines than to sustain perception among Western backers. But when a campaign becomes a matter of narrative management, strategic momentum is already slipping away.

Russian advances, though incremental, continue to drain Ukraine’s finite manpower and munitions. Terrain gains measured in square kilometers are less important than the attritional rhythm: Russia dictates tempo, and Ukraine responds. Every defensive success now exacts a disproportionate human cost.

Meanwhile, the operations in Pokrovsk and Dobropillia demonstrate Moscow’s method: splitting Ukraine’s operational map and forcing constant redeployment. Each shift in reserves creates a new vulnerability elsewhere.

The Weakness Multiplies

What we’re seeing isn’t yet total collapse, but the conditions for that are unmistakable.

• Manpower depletion: Ukrainian losses are compounded by accelerating desertions and exhaustion. Analysts estimate that, at current rates, the armed forces could lose an additional 100,000 personnel by the end of 2025—on top of daily casualties.
• Logistical overreach: Focusing on Donbas stretches command and supply lines hundreds of kilometers. Russian probes in Kharkiv and the south expose the thinness of Ukraine’s rear.
• Western dependency: Aid packages shrink, deliveries slow, and the trained manpower to absorb them dwindles. Material without morale is machinery without current.
• Narrative vs. reality: Each speech about “holding firm” conceals new evacuations and redistributions. The gap between what Kyiv says and what its soldiers see widens daily.

Territory alone no longer defines this conflict. The defining geometry is now one of initiative: who chooses, and who reacts. Russia’s choice of where to strike—from Kherson’s island operations to Kharkiv’s surprise pushes—forces Ukraine into defensive reflex. The defender now protects perception as much as ground.

That imbalance is self-perpetuating. The more Kyiv concentrates forces to hold a symbol like Avdiivka or Pokrovsk, the less flexibility remains elsewhere. A front this long cannot be patched indefinitely; each patch weakens another seam. And for Zelensky, the weaknesses are not winning him a lot of confidence geopolitically.

The next phase will likely not be a single decisive offensive but an accumulation of pressure points: deep-penetration raids, infrastructure strikes, and localized breakthroughs that render whole sectors untenable. Drone and missile barrages already map that path—sapping morale, straining energy systems, and setting conditions for winter conflict on Russian terms.

What It All Means

Even the most polished narratives cannot conceal arithmetic. Desertions rising toward six figures, coupled with mounting daily casualties, define a force that is no longer sustaining itself. Kyiv can announce new brigades and draft cycles, but each arrives thinner, older, and more reluctant than the last.

Meanwhile, powerful explosions in Kyiv—including reports of damage to a NATO coordination site—underscore that even the capital is no longer insulated from the conflict it projects outward. Moscow’s message in these strikes is unmistakable: the field of battle has no safe observation points left.

Against this backdrop, Donald Trump’s sudden cancellation of the planned Budapest meeting with Vladimir Putin tells its own story. Diplomatic resolution remains possible only through continued battlefield diplomacy—the hard leverage of facts on the ground. Russia’s stated conditions for settlement, unchanged since 2022, now appear more achievable through attrition than negotiation.

In truth, Ukraine’s conflict has entered its terminal phase. Not the peace of treaties yet, but the exhaustion of illusion—the moment when every new front page feels like déjà vu. What remains of Ukraine’s army fights bravely, but increasingly as a symbol of Western fatigue rather than national renewal.

History’s verdict may be simple: the empire that tried to divide Russia instead divided itself—politically, economically, and morally. And like every empire before it, it will learn the old lesson: you can wage war on a people, but not forever on their geography.

https://journal-neo.su/2025/10/27/ukraines-frontline-unravelling-the-end-is-near/

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT (WW3) HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA TO BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

RESTORE THE RIGHTS OF THE RUSSIAN SPEAKING PEOPLE OF "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

RESTITUTE THE ORTHODOX CHURCH PROPERTIES AND RIGHTS

RELEASE THE OPPOSITION MEMBERS FROM PRISON

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EU.....

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcyG7ZzWyUA

CRITICAL Situation For Ukrainian Troops! EU Threatens OWN Member States

 

Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukrainian forces are encircled in Pokrovsk, Myrnograd and Kupiansk. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the US has refuted these claims. Vladimir Putin has then proposed a “media corridor” for the journalists to be able to report on this, but Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has advised journalists not to go. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has warned journalists of “legal and reputational consequences” if they report from the Russian occupied territories of Ukraine. Ukraine has also closed it’s embassy in Cuba. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are defying Brussels by banning Ukrainian imports.

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.