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Moderated by Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the Russian Academy off National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and the Institute of Law and National Security, the panel discussed issues pertaining to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the end of arms control, all in the context of US-Russian relations. In addition to responding to Alexander Stepanov’s inquiries, the panel took questions from the audience.

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Sergei Karaganov is not a man to be trifled with. An esteemed Russian political scientist who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy and as the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, Karaganov has a long history of involvement in shaping Russian foreign and national security policy, having advised both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin during their respective tenures in office as President of Russia, as well as foreign ministers such as Yevgeny Primakov and Sergei Lavrov.

In the aftermath of the collapse of a planned summit between President Putin and US President Donald Trump in Budapest late last October, Mr. Karaganov asserted that this action, coupled with the imposition of US sanctions targeting major Russian oil companies, proved his long-held point that the US cannot be trusted as a negotiating partner. “Now we have a clear understanding that we can’t make any deals with any Trumps in a way that would suit Russia. Therefore, we should act in accordance with our own scenario, with or without Trump, and that’s it.”

I have pushed back against such a blanket condemnation of the US and the Trump administration, drawing upon my own history as a weapons inspector implementing the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty from 1988-90. That treaty, and the actions of those implementing it, proved in my mind that there was a foundation of goodwill and trust that could be drawn upon when it came to shaping US-Russian relations today.

The actions of the US government in the past week have thrown ice cold water on such notions, which have been exposed as being both naïve and unrealistic.

US Special Operations forces carried out a raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas last night which resulted in the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, being taken into custody by US law enforcement personnel, and removed from Venezuela, presumably to US jurisdiction, where he is expected to face trail for various charges relating to allegations of narco-trafficking.

The issue at hand isn’t the legitimacy of the US action (it is a blatant violation of international law) or the validity of the underlying criminal allegations (they fail any test of credulity), but rather the ease in which the Venezuelan President was taken into custody. One doesn’t have to be a veteran of combat operations to understand that any operation which requires a troop-laden MH-47 helicopter to hover, with navigation lights on, over a hi-rise building in a major urban environment, to deliver an assault force, was more an act of theater than an actual assault. The lack of violence that accompanied the seizure and arrest of Maduro and his wife reeks of complicity on the part of the Venezuelan security forces who has pledged their lives to his protection.

What happened last night was the maturation of a new corollary on sanctions-based regime change policy, one which imposes sanctions in order to bring about economic distress to a targeted sector of society comprised of political and economic elites, and then provide a scenario under which sanctions could be lifted and the personal economic fortunes of these targeted elites massively improved. The catch, of course, comes with the leadership of the targeted nation, which is painted as an obstacle for the normalization of economic relations. This results in an environment where these elites are vulnerable to being leveraged by outside forces as a facilitator of regime change. This is what happened in Venezuela, where military, political and economic elites were lured by the promise of millions of dollars of economic largesse which would accrue to them once Maduro was removed from power and replaced by a regime compliant to US demands.

What does this have to do with Russia, one might ask.

Everything.

Because the model of sanctions-based regime change that succeeded in Venezuela is alive and well and in motion by the United States against Russia today.

The administration of President Trump has made an art form out of transactional diplomacy. This is especially the case when it comes to trying to lure Russia into a negotiated settlement of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict. This transactional relationship has been headed by two unconventional actors in the world of diplomacy. The first is Steve Witkoff, a New York City real estate developer and Donald Trump’s special envoy for Russia. The second if Kirill Dmitriev, the former Goldman Sachs investment banker who today serves as the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and who has been hand-picked by President Putin to work with Witkoff on the Ukraine issue.

A key aspect to the Witkoff-Dmitriev dynamic is the notion of the economic benefits which will accrue to US and Russian businessmen alike once sanctions are lifted following a successful negotiated peace deal. There is one major difference, however: US businessmen are not languishing under stringent economic sanctions; Russian businessmen are.

The consequences of failed peace negotiations represent little more than unfulfilled expectations for Americans, who can live (and thrive) without such deals.

But for Russian economic (and political) elites who have reignited dreams of past economic wealth based upon the promise of renewed US-Russian economic cooperation in a post-Ukraine environment, the failure to manifest this wealth is seen as a major setback.

And if the United States is able place the blame for the failure of this economic utopia from manifesting itself on the shoulders of Russian President Putin, then the stage is set for the possibility of the dissatisfied political and economic elites to take matters in their own hands, and usher the Russian President to the exit.

This, of course, has been the goal of the United States ever since President Putin came to power, some 25 years ago. But US policy makers never had the circumstances that have presented themselves today—a sanctions-based policy which can be leveraged against Russian elites to the ostensible detriment of the Russian President.

Kirill Dmitriev has been very active in promoting the benefits of an invigorated US-Russian economic relationship. This has created certain expectations among segments of the Russian elite, who now advocate for an end to the Ukraine conflict even if the terms of such fall short of the demands that had been set forth by President Putin—namely, to address the root causes of the conflict so as to make conflict termination permanent, as opposed to simply promoting a pause in hostilities which will inevitably resume at some point down the road.

One of the reasons why the Russian President has been able to manage these pie-in-the-sky expectations of economic boom is the fact that he is universally viewed in Russia, amongst the elites and proletariat alike, as being a competent and strong leader. This is why the allegations of a Ukrainian drone attack against a Presidential residence on December 29 have taken on a level of import beyond that which normally would be attached to an attempt of the life of the leader of a nuclear-armed nation. The attack by a swarm of some 91 separate drones does not appear to have been designed to actually kill or bring harm to the Russian President—advanced warning of the attack would have provided more than enough time for the Russian leader to be evacuated to a bunker more than sufficient to withstand the blast effects of the lightly-armed drones.

No, this was an attack designed to be insulting to the Russian President, to create the impression of weakness in the face of US determination, and to paint this weakened Russian leader as the reason why the economic largess promised by the Witkoff-Dmitriev fantasy of mutual economic prosperity is not reaching fruition. If President Putin can be attacked by Ukraine with such impunity, the theory goes, then he may not be as strong as his supporters have imagined. And the Maduro precedent now exists, one highlighted by none other than Ukraine’s President, Volodymir Zelensky.

The US sanctions strategy against Russia has striking parallels to that which was used to isolate and weaken Maduro, targeting powerful energy elites who serve as the foundation of national economic strength and viability. By targeting RosNeft and Lukoil, the Trump administration put Russia’s embattled energy sector on notice that their future success is linked to US actions that can only be positively altered if a solution acceptable to Ukraine, Europe and the US can be arrived at. Void of such, US sanctions, combined with CIA-backed attacks by Ukraine against critical Russian infrastructure, with continue.

The goal of the Trump administration is crystal clear—to create a domestic crisis for President Putin derived from the dissatisfaction of Russian political and economic elites.

To create the illusion of a weakened, indecisive President whose time has passed.

To promote the notion of regime change in Russia.

I do not believe that Kirill Dmitriev was complicit in this campaign. Indeed, the fact that President Putin hand-picked Mr. Dmitirev for the role he currently enjoys strongly suggests that there has been support at the highest levels for the economic intrigues engaged in by Dmitriev and Witkoff (and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who joined the latest round of negotiations.)

President Putin appears to have been operating under the illusion that President Trump was negotiating in good faith when it came to ending the conflict in Ukraine and building strong post-conflict economic tiers between the US and Russia.

Today no such illusions can exist.

The Trump administration has no desire to lift economic sanctions against Russia.

These sanctions serve as the foundation of a broader strategy of regime change that has manifested itself in the case of Nicolas Maduro and Venezuela.

These sanctions are linked to Russia meeting conflict resolution terms that would be politically impossible for the Russian leadership to accept.

And Russia’s rejection of these terms is now juxtaposed on a new narrative, one that postulates a weak Russian President unable to stand up to the US in the face of a US-backed Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian President himself.

Seen in this light, the Witkoff-Dmitriev dialogue on US-Russian economic cooperation has been little more than a facilitator of regime change inside Russia, seeing as it promotes the vision of a bright economic future that is linked to conflict resolution in Ukraine that is unattainable so long as Vladimir Putin holds office.

The entire Trump posture vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine has been a charade.

Sergei Karaganov was right—Donald Trump and the US cannot be viewed as a trustworthy negotiating partner.

The US policy is a deception—or, as Karaganov has previously likened similar US policy initiatives, a honey trap. In short, there is no possibility of a positive Russian response to any US policy on Ukraine, or anything else for that matter, such as arms control.

The US policy toward Russia is one that seeks regime change, plain and simple.

It is a wolf wrapped in a sheep’s skin.

Russia needs to drop the Witkoff-Dmitriev charade, terminating any possibility of a US-Russian economic utopia and, in doing so, bringing back to ground those who would place their own personal economic fortune over the well-being of a nation and its leadership.

President Vladimir Putin has ruled over Russia for 25 years. During that time, he has raised Russia up from the ashes of the decade of the 1990’s, an era where Russia had fully subordinated itself to the whim of western economic interests.

Russia today is a nation grounded in a unique cultural identity that takes pride in Russian national identity.

The Witkoff-Dmitriev gambit seeks to undermine this new Russian identity by resurrecting a vision of economic viability grounded in the same master-servant relationship that defined the decade of the 1990’s.

This would be the ruin of Russia.

And as an American patriot, dedicated to the furtherance of that which makes for a more peaceful and prosperous United States, such an outcome is not desirable.

The basic tenets enshrined in the Witkoff-Dmitirev dialogue are sound—that both nations could benefit from a relationship built on the notion of mutual respect and trust.

But this condition does not exist today, nor will it ever exist so long as the United States is infected with Russophobia.

Just as Russia has demanded that any conflict resolution in Ukraine resolve the root causes of that conflict, it is high time that Russia make similar demands for normalizing relations with the US, namely that the US must publicly renounce Russophobia as a condition of improved US-Russian relations. Russophobia serves as the foundational ideological influence shaping US-Russian relations. If this remains the case, regime change will be on the table as a policy option for future US leaders to consider.

A healthy US-Russian dynamic can only exist in an environment of mutual trust grounded in respect.

The current reality, where the US put in motion a sanctions-based regime change operation facilitated by divisions within Venezuelan society prompted by a desire to have the sanctions lifted at any cost, must color Russian attitudes regarding diplomatic relations between the US and Russia.

The Witkoff-Dmitriev dialogue, as it currently is being implemented, is a farce.

The United States is not a trustworthy negotiating partner.

Just ask Sergei Karaganov.

(I recently sat down with Sergei Karaganov for a wide-ranging interview on The Russia House with Scott Ritter, where these and other issues were explored in detail.)

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Andrei Ilnitsky is not someone to be trifled with. A retired Lieutenant General of the Russian Armed Forces, Andrei served for 10 years as a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoigu, responsible for formulating and implementing information policy. When Shoigu was replaced by Andrei Belousov as Minister of Defense in May 2025, Andrei stepped down from his position and assumed a more informal role of advisor on political strategy for the Ministry of Defense. Today Andrei is widely published in prestigious military journals, and is a frequent commentor on Russia television. In short, Andrea Ilnitsky is a serious man whose views resonate with the highest levels of the Russian government.

I had the honor and privilege of being able to engage in a frank and open discussion with Andrei Ilnitsky as part of my The Russia House with Scott Ritter podcast. We focused on the prospects for better relations between the United States and Russia in the aftermath of the Alaska Summit, and discussed the prospects of a US-brokered peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Andrei and I parted on good terms—I believe he felt I had asked intelligent questions and showed a modicum of familiarity with the issues of the day and how they are viewed from a Russian perspective. As for me, I soaked in every word—it’s not often one gets the opportunity to probe the mind of a man who directly advised a Russian Minister of Defense for a decade. We exchanged contact information, and promised to stay in touch.

And stay in touch we did. I would read transcripts of Andrei’s appearances on Russian media while translating articles he had previously published in Russian military journals (Andrei was kind enough to provide me with copies of these), while Andrei let me know that he was watching my appearances on YouTube and reading my own articles.

It was in the context of my recent efforts to breath life into the derelict machinery of arms control that Andrei reached out to me to comment on my words and efforts. I had been promoting the idea of reviving the spirit of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with regard to the soon-to-be-expired New START treaty, to include highlighting the mantra oft-repeated by President Ronald Reagan, “trust but verify.”

“The crisis of trust between Russia and the US, between the Global South and the West,” Andrei wrote, “may be the greatest crisis of our time. Trust is the object of a mental war. It is destroyed quickly and restored slowly. This is, among other things, what we (you & me) discussed in Moscow.”

Andrei and I spoke in length about this very issue, with an emphasis on the long and difficult path the United States would need to take in order to regain the trust of the Russian people and government in the aftermath of Ukraine.

“Russians are a trusting people,” Andrei noted. “But if we’re deceived, our trust is hard to regain. And no Kirill Dmitrievs [note: the former Goldman Sachs investment banker and current CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, who currently serves as a special envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin on bettering relations with the United States]—people who are mentally non-Russian—will help here. You have to talk to Russia either honestly or not at all. Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 are difficult and bad lessons, but we’ve learned them. There will be no Minsk 3. I hope so.”

The issue of a “Minsk 3” looms large in the psyche of many Russians today, namely the fear that Russia will once again fall victim to the naive belief that the West is capable of negotiating in good faith, that an agreement means what it says, and is not simply a smokescreen behind which plots are devised and implemented. For Russia, the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements represent this very sort of nefarious double-dealing.

However, one of the main players behind convincing Russian President Vladmir Putin to agree to the Minsk accords, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, admitted in an interview published in Zeit Magazine on December 7, 2022, nearly a year to the day after she stepped down from her post. “The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time,” Merkel told the German magazine. “They used that time to get stronger, which you can see today. Ukraine of 2014/15 is not Ukraine of today.” (Similar confessions have been made by the other two parties to the Minsk accords, French President François Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.)

Angela Merkel personally led the Minsk negotiations between 2014 and 2015 in an effort to stabilize eastern Ukraine. The February 2015 negotiations in particular were important—Merkel was faced with a looming disaster for the Ukrainian army in Debaltseve, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded and facing imminent annihilation at the hands of Russian-backed separatist forces.

Under these circumstances, Merkel, together with Hollande, frantically pushed a diplomatic agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin—the Minsk accords—which Merkel later admitted was simply a ruse designed to freeze the conflict and buy the Ukrainian military time to reorganize and refit for the purpose of continuing the fight. The agreement, reached on February 15, 2015, included a cease-fire, called for the withdrawal of heavy weapons, and the establishment of a security zone that would be monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Moreover, President Poroshenko pledged to amend Ukraine’s constitution to allow special status for the Russian-speaking citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk and grant them greater autonomy.

President Putin, reflecting on Merkel’s confession that the Minsk accords were simply a ruse, noted that “We thought we would still be able to agree within the framework of the Minsk peace agreements. What can you say? There is a question of trust.” President Putin reflected on his words, before adding “And trust, of course, is almost at zero.”

As it turned out, Putin stated, “no one was going to fulfil all these Minsk agreements, and the point was only to pump up Ukraine with weapons and prepare it for hostilities. After a statement like that,” the Russian President added, “the question arises of how to negotiate, about what, and is it possible to negotiate with someone, and where are the guarantees. An agreement will have to be reached in the end,” Putin concluded, “all the same. I have said many times that we are ready for these agreements, we are open, but this makes us think who we are dealing with.”

Andrei Ilnitsky is a man of honor, a man of integrity. Today Andrei specializes in information policy. But for him, the concept of betrayal is more than theoretical. He is a highly educated man, having graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) From 1982 to 1992, Andrei worked as a research fellow at the 26th Central Research Institute, located in Balashikha, in the Moscow Oblast. The 26th Central Research Institute in an interservice institution dedicated to comprehensive research on issues pertaining to military infrastructure, specialized military construction and fortification complexes, and other facilities for the services of the Russian armed forces.

From 1992-2003, Andrei was one of the senior editors with the ASST Publishing Group, one of the two largest publishing houses in Russia. Near the end of his time with ASST, Andrei enrolled in the Moscow School of Political Studies, from which he graduated in 2002. He is a member of the Moscow Writer’s Union.

After graduating from the Moscow School of Political Studies, Andrei became involved with Open Russia, a political organization founded by the Russian Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and shareholder from Yukos, an oil and gas company Khodorkovsky built largely on the basis of a controversial “loans for shares” auction program that exploited the hard economic reality of many Russians. Open Russia underwrote philanthropic projects, including educational projects for young people, the Federation of Internet Education, the Club of Regional Journalism and projects of human rights NGO’s. Andrei oversaw leadership and regional projects on behalf of Open Russia.

Open Russia met its demise in 2006. In October 2003 Khodorkovsky was arrested on charges of tax fraud. Starting in 2004, the Russian government began seizing the assets of Yukos, before dismantling the company entirely in 2006. The fate of Open Russia paralleled that of Yukos, and with its source of funding terminated, Open Russia disbanded.

Open Russia ostensibly operated on a reform agenda designed to build and strengthen civil society. During its time of operation, Open Russia had extensive interactions with NGO’s funded by western nations, including the United States. Andrei was on record during this time for expressing admiration for the United States, calling it an “amazing country with colossal energy” that had been “created by people who believe in God, but above all in themselves.”

Andrei’s impression of the United States, and the West in general, appears to have been dampened by the realities associated with his experience as part of Open Russia. Rather than promoting pro-Russian values, Open Russia had been used by Khodorkovsky and his allies to undermine public confidence in Russian institutions, culture and self-confidence. In 2006, Andrei joined United Russia, the political movement and party most closely associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As a member of United Russia, Andrei became heavily involved in the affairs of the Moscow Region, leading a number of civic initiatives that radically transformed the political and social lives of Muscovites for the better. Andrei was recognized for his work by both Moscow regional authorities, who awarded him with the Badge of St. Sergius of Radonezh for high services to the Moscow Oblast (Region), and the Russian Government, which awarded him the Medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland”, 2nd Class.

Around 2010, Andrei became acquainted with Sergei Shoigu, a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, first in his role as the Minister of Emergency Situations, and briefly as the governor of the Moscow Oblast. In 2012, Shoigu was appointed as the Minister of Defense. At the end of 2014, Andrei resigned from his duties with the Moscow Oblast, and in March 2015 took up his position as a senior advisor for information policy with the Ministry of Defense. In 2017 Andrei graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, paving the way for his promotion to Lieutenant General.

Andrei arrived at the Ministry of Defense in a time of great controversy. On 26 February 2013, the chief of the Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, published an article entitled “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight: New Challenges Demand Rethinking the Forms and Methods of Carrying out Combat Operations” in Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kurier (VPK) (Military-Industrial Courier). In this article, Gerasimov set forth his view of the operational environment that the Russian military found itself in, and the nature of future war.

In his article, Gerasimov concluded that the pattern of compelled US-sponsored regime change had transitioned away from overt military invasion (i.e., Operation Desert Storm) to a new kind of “hybrid warfare” which saw the US installing political opposition in targeted countries using mainstream media outlets like CNN and BBC which acted like state-control propaganda organizations, the Internet and social media (“soft power”, or “digital democracy”), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Once the US was able to successfully lay the foundation of internal political dissent, separatism, and/or social strife, the targeted government would find it increasingly difficult to maintain order, and the US would take advantage of deteriorating security environments to empower separatist movements, operating in conjunction with covert special operations and (if needed) conventional military power, to create the conditions of political collapse which would be accelerated by the imposition of economic and political sanctions by the US. The ultimate goal would be to create the conditions for regime change, where a government not to the liking of the US would be replaced by one that would do the bidding of the US.

While General Gerasimov wrote of “indirect and asymmetrical methods” in describing what was clearly his articulation of a new kind of warfare being waged by the West, western analysts misconstrued Gerasimov’s intent in writing his article as an expression of a new kind of Russian warfare, which they named “hybrid warfare.” This misdirection took on more weight following the events of the Maidan “revolution” in January-February 2014, and the subsequent Russian seizure and annexation of Crimea. Western analysts tried to use these events as a clear illustration of Russian-style “hybris warfare” in action.

But, in fact, it was the opposite that was true. As Gerasimov pointed out, the tactics used by the West in Ukraine in 2014 and onward followed a classic pattern of behavior that had been seen in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria, Iran, Libya—and Ukraine and Russia. The role played by NGO’s in facilitating the “soft power” actions was singled out by Gerasimov to be a major factor in the success of “hybrid warfare.”

Andrei assumed his duties as a senior advisor for information policy in the midst of the controversy generated by Gerasimov’s article. While Andrei did not discuss this aspect of his personal evolution with me, the patterns of behavior outlined by General Gerasimov in outlining his theory of western “indirect and asymmetrical warfare” would logically have resonated with Andrei, given his front-seat role in facilitating the “soft power” actions of Open Russia from 2002-2006.

What is known is that in March of 2021, Andrei gave an interview to the military magazine Arsenal Otechestva (Arsenal of the Fatherland) where he accused the United States, and the West in general, of waging what he called a “mental war” against Russia.

“If in classical wars,” Andrei said, “the goal is to destroy the enemy’s manpower, in modern cyber wars to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure, then the goal of the new war is to destroy self-consciousness, to change the civilizational basis of the enemy’s society. I would call this type of war ‘mental.’ Moreover, while manpower and infrastructure can be restored, the evolution of consciousness cannot be reversed, especially since the consequences of this ‘mental’ war do not appear immediately but only after at least a generation, when it will be impossible to fix something.”

“Mental War” appears to be a corollary to Gerasimov’s “indirect and asymmetrical warfare”, another tool used by the collective West to tear down Russian society from within. Far from being the far-fetched idea of someone on the political fringe of Russian power, Andrei’s concept of “Mental War” was endorsed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who noted that there was “[a] deliberate policy to contain and keep Russia down is being pursued. It is absolutely constant and visible to the naked eye.”

When viewed in the context of Andrei’s evolution as a political thinker, one can discern a direct connection between his concept of “mental war”, and his concerns regarding the trustworthiness of the United States.

To someone possessing Andrei’s discerning intellect, a term like “mental warfare” would not be chosen lightly.

All words have meaning.

This is especially true in the context of what people are calling a “peace deal” between Russia and the United States, a concept furthered by the fact that the Russians and American sides have put two “dealmakers” front and center when it comes to crafting an agreement on Ukraine—the aforementioned Kirill Dmitriev, and Steve Witkoff, a New York City real estate mogul and close personal friend of Donald Trump.

The problematic nature of the term “deal” was spelled out to me in ANdrei’s most recent communication.

“And one more thing,” Andrei noted. “In the US-Russia dialogue, tone, subtext, and words are very important. The word ‘deal’ has a negative connotation in Russian. It suggests some kind of trickery and deception. Agreements and trust are not achieved through deals.”

Words have meaning.

“Keep this in mind,” Andrei asked, “and please explain it to the Americans.”

I’ll try my best.

When it comes to arms control, Russia isn’t looking to engage in a real estate transaction.

Russia isn’t interested in gaining an advantage through sleight of hand (or negotiation.)

We are in the situation we face today because the United States has treated arms control like a transactional exercise.

We withdrew from the ABM treaty because it was inconvenient to those who believed in the myth of a perfect missile shield.

With withdrew from the INF treaty because it was inconvenient to our need to match the Chinese (who were not party to the treaty) capabilities in intermediate-range missiles.

We negotiated the New START treaty in bad faith, deliberately obscuring definitions that could be reimagined down the road when issues of compliance and compliance verification arose.

Lying about our willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations about missile defense once the New START treaty was successfully ratified.

The Russians aren’t looking for a good “deal”, because "deals” are, by their very nature, subjective, depending on situational factors that change over time.

Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Deterrence capabilities are considered essential for the survival of the Russian nation and civilization, especially in a time when Russia’s enemies are seeking the strategic defeat of Russia using both “hybrid warfare” and “mental war.”

There is no “deal” possible that would have Russia sacrifice the one thing that guarantees its ability to defeat the external threats posed by the collective West and their stratagem of strategically defeating Russia.

Now let’s look at the “peace deal” the Trump administration is dangling before the Russian nation.

The “deal” hinges on a yet-to-be defined economic relationship which seeks to link the Russian and American economies through a program of investments and joint endeavors designed to promote the kind of connectivity that serves as a de facto security guarantee, a notion premised on the concept that nations so closely linked economically would be loath to go to war against one another.

The problem, however, is that the premise of such a deal—Russia opening itself up to significant investments by foreign partners who only recently were seeking Russia’s strategic defeat—are activities which appear to be purpose built for the kind of “hybrid warfare” and “mental war” that Gerasimov and Andrei, respectively, warned about.

Russia doesn’t want a “deal.”

Russia wants a binding treaty backed by fool-proof guarantees.

And therein lies the rub.

Words matter.

Because words have meaning.

America wants to conflate the notion of a “deal” with the substance of a treaty.

Russia knows better, because it has been on the receiving end of American (and western) duplicity for too long.

“Trust, but verify” sounds good when spoken.

But put those words down in writing, and the concept becomes inherently problematic.

“Russians are a trusting people,” Andrei had written to me. “But if we’re deceived, our trust is hard to regain.”

Its time to wake up to a harsh reality, America.

If we want better relations with Russia, if we want a lasting peace in Ukraine, if we want meaningful arms control agreements, then we are going to have to win back the trust of the Russian people.

And it is going to take a considerable amount of good-faith effort to win back the trust of a people whom we have consistently betrayed over the course of the past several decades.

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We discussed energy war being waged between Russia and Ukraine, and in particular how Russia was responding to the threat posed by Ukrainian drones to critical Russian energy infrastructure.

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We discussed her reasons for moving to Russia, what she thinks of the Russian people and culture, and why Russia may be the ideal destination for people looking for a society that appreciates family values and quality of life over pure commercialism.

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I asked Alexander a question about Venezuela possibly being used by Russia as a “second front” against the United States. His answer was a tour de force of modern geopolitical analysis that is a must see!

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When I received my new passport, back on July 15 (a quick reminder—the US government had seized my passport back in June 2024 for the purpose of preventing my being able to travel to Russia), I was determined to make visiting Russia my first trip. I specifically timed the trip so that it fell on the first anniversary of the FBI executing a search warrant of my home, seizing my personal electronics based upon a statement of probable cause that postulated that I was willingly and knowingly serving as an unregistered agent of the Russian government. The accusation was absurd. However, the actions taken by the FBI and Department of Justice, which included empaneling a federal grand jury for the purpose of bringing forward criminal charges, were intended to intimidate me into silence.

I refused to play that game, instead aggressively advocating for arms control between the US and Russia to reduce the threat of nuclear war under the guise of what I termed Operation DAWN. Part of the multi-faceted approach taken under the Operation DAWN umbrella to increase public awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons was a book I wrote for that purpose, Highway to Hell: The Armageddon Chronicles, 2015-2024. This book was published by Clarity Press in the Spring of 2025.

During my August trip to Russia, I used the English language version of Highway to Hell to help promote awareness of the nuclear issue. This largely proved to be effective in making the Russian audience aware of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. But it quickly became evident that to have a broader conversation, the book would need to be presented to the Russian people in their own language.

My producer for The Russia House with Scott Ritter, Alexandra Madornaya, arranged a meeting with Konstantin Antipin, the editor of the Russian publishing house Konzepual. After discussing the book and my vision, Konstantin agreed to publish the book in time for my November visit to Russia.

My goal for November was to use the Russian language edition of Highway to Hell as a vehicle for a broader discussion of the nuclear threat that I would have with the Russian people and government. I planned on jump starting my visit with a public launch of the Russian language edition of Highway to Hell on the evening of November 9, held in a reception hall at the historic Central House of Writers, in downtown Moscow. The presentation was made to an audience of around 80 handpicked people, including those I believed would be able to help my message resonate more effectively amongst the Russian people and government.

Back in August, I had been asked to write letters to a number of senior Russian officials, including the President, the Foreign Minister, and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, as well as the President of Belarus and the former Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, requesting interviews. I was told at the time that there was a very good chance for most, if not all, of the interviews being granted. But then came Alaska, and the decision by the Russian government to freeze all interviews in order not to generate any publicity that could interfere with the broader objectives of the Trump-Putin summit. I was specifically told that if I were to come back in November, that these requests would be able to be accommodated then.

I also submitted a request, through two major Russian media outlets, for interviews and tours that would shine a light on the consequences of the decision by the Trump administration to withdraw from the INF Treaty. One of the themes I wanted to explore was how the decision by the United States to withdraw from the INF Treaty in August 2019 had manifested itself regarding the development and deployment of INF-capable weapons systems used by the Russian military today.

The United States government had accused Russia of violating the terms of the INF Treaty and specifically named the 9M729 missile as the weapon that was in violation. On January 23, 2019, Russia publicly displayed the 9M729 missile for the first time. Lt. Gen Mikhail Matveevsky, chief of the Russian missile and artillery forces, declared that the 9M729 missile features a more powerful warhead and improved guidance system over the previous 9M728 model. It did not, however, have an increased range.

I was interested in learning about the status of the 9M729 missile today. The United States claimed that the 9M729 possessed a range greater than the 500 kilometers permitted under the treaty. I asked to receive a briefing about the 9M729 missile, and, if possible, conduct a tour of a 9M729-equipped unit, to help demonstrate that the system was, in fact, a treaty compliant weapon under the INF Treaty

The issue of arms control, I pointed out, was central to any prospect of improved US-Russian relations. It was therefore critical that the American public be as well informed as possible about the factors that led the United States government to withdraw from the INF Treaty. This is especially true if Russia was not in violation of the INF Treaty.

A briefing about, and a tour of, the 9M729 missile, I believed, would help resolve this point.

I also brought up the Oreshnik missile.

On November 21, 2024, Russia delivered a strike on a Ukrainian military industrial facility using a new INF-capable missile, the Oreshnik. On August 1, 2025, President Putin announced that the Oreshnik missile had entered serial production. On August 4, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that Russia no longer considered itself bound by the restrictions of the INF Treaty, and that the Oreshnik missile would enter operational service with the Russian military.

As President Putin highlighted in his statement of November 21, 2024, the development and deployment of the Oreshnik missile was a direct consequence on the decision made by the United States government to withdraw from the INF Treaty in August 2019.

Today the American public remains largely ignorant of the new reality that exists in terms of the balance of power in Europe that has emerged with the development and deployment of the Oreshnik missile.

In the early 1980’s, when the Soviet Union deployed the analogous SS-20/RSD-10 Pioneer missile, public opinion in both the United States and Europe was mobilized in support of arms control that helped create the political conditions under which the INF Treaty was able to be successfully negotiated and implemented by the United States government.

I believed it was critical that the United States government avoid policies that could lead to a nuclear arms race in Europe, and the dangers that would accrue as a result. It was therefore imperative, in my opinion, that the United States government embrace policies which reduce the threat posed by INF-capable missiles. The ability of the American public to rally around such a policy, however, was and is hampered by the lack of information about the Oreshnik missile system and its capabilities.

To help inform the American public about the reality of the Oreshnik missile and the need for policies which would mitigate against its future use against targets in Europe, I requested that consideration be given for providing me with a briefing about, and a tour of, the Oreshnik missile system during my visit to Russia.

I submitted one request in September and followed up with a second in October. By the time of my arrival in November, the jury was still out. Planning for a best-case scenario, I extended my November trip by an additional five days to provide opportunities for either some high-level interviews, the missile tours, or both.

As we now know, serious back-channel talks between the US and Russia were initiated in late October, which once again had a chilling effect on my ability to conduct the requested interviews, which would have focused on the very issues being sorted out behind the scenes, including the possible extension of the New START treaty. Once again political reality trumped journalistic optimism.

I also received the news that while my request had made it to the desk of the Minister of Defense, and was actively considered, the decision was that Russia would not be granting the requested tours and interviews at this time.

This information hit me like a body blow.

I had raised a lot of money to make this trip possible and invested over $6,000 of my own funds in hopes of moving the issue of nuclear arms control forward in an aggressive fashion.

All was not lost, however. I had contacted representatives of a prestigious discussion group, and approached them about the idea of hosting a panel on the danger of nuclear weapons and the need for arms control. They agreed that this was a good idea, and plans were being solidified when, at the last minute, the word came down from “above” that nuclear questions were not the purview of this discussion group, or any other outlet outside the Russian government.

It was a moment of clarity as chilling as the cold November rain that followed me throughout my visit to Russia.

Throughout the extensive preparations for this visit, I was buoyed by the success last year of Operation DAWN, the effort to make preventing a nuclear war an issue of concern for the candidates involved in the 2024 US Presidential race. Because of the work done with Operation DAWN, I was able to gain access to senior Trump administration insiders and member of Congress, all of whom helped promote an agenda of preventing nuclear war by restraining efforts by the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles capable of striking the Russian strategic depth and, in doing so, potentially triggering a Russian nuclear response.

I learned a hard lesson while in Russia, namely that what works in America does not directly translate in Russia. Russia has its own way of doing business, and it’s done on a timeline that Russia and Russia alone chooses.

This was a lesson learned the hard way, at great expense in terms of time and money.

But it was a lesson that had to be learned if I was to have any hope of success going forward.

And I will be going forward.

I wasn’t told “no”.

I was simply told “not now.”

Because of the connections made during this visit, there is a plan which is being considered by the Russian government which could address the issues I am interested in pursuing, namely the threat of nuclear war and the need for disarmament, in a new and innovative manner.

Discretion mandates that the details of this plan be kept closely held until it reaches the point of implementation.

I am confident this plan will reach fruition.

But it will be done at a time convenient to the Russian government.

None of this detracts from the fact that my November visit to Russia was a huge overall success.

First and foremost, I (together with the assistance of very kind and generous donors) brought Garland Nixon to Russia for the first time. Garland got to experience Minsk and Saint Petersburg, in addition to Moscow, participate in several public speaking events, served as the co-host for The Russia House with Scott Ritter, participated in several high-profile media interviews, and meet hundreds of Russians from all walks of life, all of whom were thrilled to see him in Russia.

Garland Nixon went to Russia as an independent journalist, with all expenses paid for by donations received from the supporters of both his and my work. While this places a burden on us and our supporters, it enhances the credibility of our work since we are readily able to defeat any allegation of being “Putin’s paid puppets.”

We were also liberated in that the agenda we pursued in Russia was purely ours—we were not held hostage by the whim, desires and needs of a host organization. Sure, we didn’t stay in a luxury hotel, and our method of transportation was economy class, including taxis. Other than the times in which we were invited to dinner by friends, we took our meals at the same neighborhood restaurants and working-class fast-food joints as did the average citizen of Russia.

Garland got to see the real Russia and meet real Russians.

And such experiences are priceless.

This trip also established my independence in the minds of the Russian government, media and professionals.

I think prior to this trip many in Russia were confused as to who I worked for, and who crafted my agenda. One of the main reasons for this was that in the past my visits were hosted by Alexander Zirionov (April-May 2023, December 2023-January 2024), the National Unity Club (August 2025), and RT (October 2025.) Except for the RT-hosted visit, where I was a guest helping RT celebrate its 20^th anniversary, I was always in control of my agenda, picking the places where I would visit, the meetings I would participate in, and the media interviews I would give.

However, the events of 2024 turned my world upside down.

I was under a microscope wielded by powers (the FBI and the Department of Justice) for whom truth did not matter, just the warped perceptions they could construct by reading nefarious intent into fragments of data selectively picked for the purpose of fabricating a narrative that did not exist.

I could not afford to create any window of opportunity for the FBI to misconstrue my work, whether it be from the standpoint of funding to who originates the goals and objectives of my work.

The November visit was my declaration of independence.

Whereas in the past I would make use of studios and interpreters provided by others, on this trip I had Alexandra rent our own studio space and pay for our own technical and linguistic support. And where I would in the past sometimes allow others to arrange for interviews with prominent Russian figures, on this trip Alexandra and I carefully selected those whom we wanted to interview in collaborative fashion. The result was a tour de force of Russian expertise covering a wide range of issues pertaining to Russian society. In short, if the objective of The Russia House with Scott Ritter is to capture the Russian reality and bring it to an American audience, we delivered in spades.

In the days and weeks to come, the byproduct of this labor will be released to the public. The audience will get a better understanding about the real situation of the Russian economy through from the perspective of noted economist Mikhail Delyagin. Courtesy of Alexander Artamonov, we delve into the complicated topic of what “de-Nazification” means in the context of Ukraine. You will examine the impact of cinema on Russian society through the lens of the Russian journalist Fyodor Razzaokov. Alexander Stepanov, a military expert affiliated with the Russian Presidential Academy talked about Russian policy in Central America, with an emphasis on Venezuela. Valery Korovin talked about the meaning of the word “Eurasia” from a Russian historical perspective. With Nikolai Starikov we explored some of the conspiracy theories surrounding key aspects of Russian and Soviet history. Maxim Lavrukhin talked about energy security in the age of drone warfare, while Andrey Masalovich—the famous “Cyber Grandfather”—explored the impact of artificial intelligence on open-source intelligence. Francesca de Bardin, an American expat living in Moscow, discussed her new book, Moscow Diary, and what life was like as an American living in Moscow. And I touched upon the current state of play in US-Russian relations with Andrey Mikhailovich, a former senior advisor to the Minister of Defense.

Ten interviews in total (we had scheduled fourteen, but life intervened, as it does, causing four persons to cancel.)

The goal of these interviews was to capture the “Russian reality” and bring it to an American audience.

Our independence was almost our undoing. Word came down from high that there was counter-intelligence interest in the interviews Alexandra and I were planning on doing. I wasn’t picking “big names” to generate “clicks” or mobilize the masses. Instead, Alexandra and I had selected people with real expertise, the kind of experts whom, once you interview them, are able to provide a deep analysis and understanding of Russian society today. There was some thought that my interviews were being done as a front for intelligence collection.

In the end, the Russian authorities allowed our work to go on uninhibited. But I take it as a mark of pride that my effort to capture the “Russian reality” was seen as being so thorough as to provoke genuine counterintelligence interest on the part of Russian authorities.

I did three separate book events—the Moscow book launch, a book presentation in Saint Petersburgh, and a second Moscow event organized by an organization known as “Day Center.”

All three were very well attended.

I spoke on a panel at the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues (GORKI), a think tank run by the former Austrian Foreign Minister, Karen Kneissl, in association with the University of Saint Petersburg, where we discussed the Anchorage Summit. The panel was very well attended, and the audience asked deep and thoughtful questions.

I was also invited to speak before students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the diplomatic school of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The students asked questions befitting their elite status.

I was interviewed by a major Belarus TV channel (OTN, with Garland Nixon), by Radio Sputnik, Sputnik television, Izvestia, TASS, Channel 1, Match TV, RuTube, Vovan and Lexus, and the MetaMetrica and Peya Pervy podcasts.

I met with volunteer organizations who provide humanitarian goods for frontline soldiers.

I held private discussions with Russian frontline military commanders, Artificial Intelligence experts, Caucasian political activists, Russian geopolitical journalists, and others.

And I toured memorials dedicated to those who were killed during World War Two—the Memorial to the Soviet Soldier, in Rzhev, the Khatyn Memorial outside of Minsk, the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad in Saint Petersburg, and the Victory Park complex outside Moscow.

One can never forget.

There were no “down” days—even the five additional days I had laid on the schedule were fully consumed with important work.

My November visit to Russia will go down as the most productive trip I’ve made to Russia as an independent journalist. It represents an important steppingstone for my future work, a portal through which I had to cross to get to where I want to be going.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who made this trip possible.

And I am especially thankful for the work and support provided by my producer and fellow team member, Alexandra Madornaya. Without her this trip literally could not have happened.

I am blessed with good friends and supporters inside Russia, including Anton Karpov, who kindly provided the reception hall at the Central House of Writers for my book launch, to Mauka Pipea, whose hospitality at his restaurant, Genatsvali, is world class, to Peter Hanseler, who presided over great dinners and even better discussions, Alexander Stepanov for showing me Russian history and hospitality, Yulia Prokharova, for introducing me to so many interesting people, to Pavel Balabonov, for opening up his home and hospitality to me and my team, and Kirill Sokolov, who gratuitously made himself and his car available to drive us in and around Moscow.

But most of all I am grateful to you, the readers and supporters whose donations made this trip possible.

Thank you all for making the cold November rains of Moscow such a warm and receptive destination, and a springboard for future work that will further the mission of improving US-Russia relations and reducing the threat of nuclear war by promoting effective arms control.

I have just returned from travelling 19 days in Russia, conducting interviews of prominent Russians in order to help capture the Russian reality and bring it to an American audience. This article was motivated by this visit, which was mostly funded by the kind donations of you, the reader. If you want to see more articles like this, please subscribe. And if you want to help make possible more trips such as this, please donate (the Author’s next scheduled trip to Russia is in March-April 2026.)

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You see it in the distance as you enter the sprawling complex of monuments and carefully manicured open space that comprises the half-million square foot expanse that is the Khatyn memorial to the victims of the Nazi genocide in Belarus—a black figure standing at the termination point of a pathway made of concrete slabs.

As you draw closer the form of the object becomes discernable—an man, his body battered and his clothing torn, cradling the body of a boy in his arms, his face a mask of unspeakable anguish.

Designed by sculptor Sergei Selikhanov, the statue depicts Yuzif Kaminsky, the only adult villager who survived the Nazi massacre in the Belorussian village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943, cradling the corpse of his dead son, Adam. Kaminskiy’s grief is meant to be representative of all the suffering inflicted on the Belorussian people by the German Nazis and their proxies.

Sergey Selikhanov was no ordinary sculptor. Born in 1917 in the city of Petrograd later renamed Leningrad, and today known as Saint Petersburgh, the same name it bore when it was first built by Peter the Great in the later 17^th century), Sergey studied the fine arts, graduating in 1937 from the Vitebsk Art College. During the Great Patriotic War, Sergei served in the Red Army. He fought in the horrible battles outside Moscow and Rzhev, on the Kalinin and Voronezh fronts, and at the Kursk Bulge. He helped force the crossing of the Dnieper River, fought in Silesia and ended the war helping liberate Prague. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st and 2nd degrees, the Badge of Honor, and the Medal “For Courage”.

Sergei knew the reality of war, and the face of suffering. And when called upon to design a statue for the Khatyn Memorial, he opted not to produce something from the school of socialist realism that defined most Soviet-era war memorials, but rather something more ragged, rough, that captured the raw emotion of a man who had watched an entire village be burned to death, including his family, and to find his son—his legacy, his future—amongst the slain.

The name of the statue Sergei produced was “The Unbowed Man.”

But for those who know, it is the statue of Yusik Kaminsky and his son, Adam.

The Khatyn Memorial is built on the land where the village bearing the same name once stood. On the morning of March 22, 1943, soldiers from the 118^th Police Battalion and the SS-Sonderbattalion, led by Oskar Dirlewanger. The 118^th Police Battalion was stood up in Kiev in 1942. Commanded by German officers, including Erich Korner and Hans Woelke, a famed German athlete who won a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the rank and file of the 118^th Battalion was drawn from western Ukrainian nationalists who were members of the faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) led by Stepan Bandera. The Banderists were used by the Germans to carry out the most brutal repressions of the Russian and Belorussian people, actions that fit well with their ideology, founded as it was on the murderous advancement of Western Ukraine over all other regional peoples.

Dirlewanger’s SS-Sonderbattalion was created specifically for the purpose of implementing the policies associated with “Plan Ost”, the systemic annihilation of the non-Germanic population of the Soviet territory, including Belorussia, that was occupied by Nazi forces. Dirlewanger recruited rapists, murdered and psychopaths selected for their unquestioning willingness to engage in the systematic slaughter of targeted populations. Under Plan Ost, fully 75% of Belorussians were considered by the Germans as “unfit” for “Germanization” and targeted for liquidation.

According to Adolf Heusinger, a senior German General in the Operations Department of the German Army High Command, responsible for conceiving and implementing military operations against the Soviet Union, “The treatment of the civilian population and the methods of anti-partisan warfare in operational areas presented the highest political and military leaders with a welcome opportunity to carry out their plans, namely the systemic extermination of Slavism and Jewry.”

(Despite his direct knowledge and active role in the implementation of Plan Ost, Heusinger escaped prosecution after the end of the Second World War, and in 1955 returned to military service as a general officer in the new German Bundeswehr, eventually serving as the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr and the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee.)

Between the Banderist extremists and the psychopaths of the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion, the population of Khatyn never stood a chance.

The 22^nd of March 1943 marked the Spring Equinox, a time when the sun is directly over the equator and day and night are of equal length. In Belorussia, the days leading up to the equinox are known as Maslenitsa, or “Butter Week”, a time of feasting and merrymaking before the start of Lent. In the homes of the village of Khatyn, wives and mothers were up early, preparing the dough for the various breads, cookies and cakes they would bake to celebrate this event. The children of the village either remained in their beds, or were scampering about, excited for the holiday to come.

In the Kaminsky home, Yuzif sat around a table while his wife and Mother conducted the preparations for baking. Yuzif was joined by Anton Kunkevitch, who lived in a neighboring village and who had come to Khatyn to talk to Yuzif, who worked as a blacksmith, about helping craft several items he needed for his work. His three sons—Adam, Misha and Vilya—sat nearby, listening as the men talked.

Several kilometers away, the fate of Yuzif and his family, together with the rest of the occupants of Khatyn, was decided by others. Two companies of Belorussian partisans from the “Avenger” brigade positioned themselves along the road connecting Pleshchenitsy and Lahoisk. The partisans had cut the telephone wires, and looking to ambush any German vehicles that might arrive to conduct repairs.

Around noon on March 22, they got their wish. A small convoy consisting of three vehicles—an armored car and two trucks—approached the partisan positions. In the armored car was none other than Hans Woelke, the commander of the 1^st Company of the 118^th Police Battalion. Wolke was killed by the partisan fire, along with three of his Ukrainian auxiliaries. The partisans then fled from their ambush toward Khatyn.

Korner, the commander of the 118^th Battalion, was incensed when he heard about Woelke’s death. Informed that the tracks of the partisans, which were visible in the snow that still lay on the ground, led to Khatyn, Korner ordered the 1^st Company, together with reinforcements from the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion, to exterminate the village and all its occupants.

By the time the Germans had assembled the punitive force, the partisans had fled from the vicinity of Khatyn. Only a single female partisan was discovered in the forests outside Khatyn. She was executed on the spot.

According to the report of the partisans, “[Khatyn] was destroyed and all its inhabitants burned in the barn. In total 140 people were burned, among them seventy children between the ages of 1 and 14.”

Eight-year-old Viktor Andreevich Zhelobkovich was one of three survivors to emerge from the barn. In 1986, he provided this account of that horrible day:

That day before dinner my father and I went to the barn, to prepare hay for the cow. Suddenly we heard gunshots. We ran into the house, told all the people ... to hide in the basement. After some time the members of the punitive squad broke through the door to the basement and ordered us all out on the street. As we got out we saw that they were chasing people out of the other houses as well. They brought us to the barn, which stood a little bit outside the village.

I saw half-dressed and barefoot children. The Germans did not allow anybody to get dressed. The barn was 10 by 12 meters. The people calmed each other, told themselves ‘They are just trying to scare us and will let us go.’

We sat for about an hour. When someone climbed up under the ceiling to see what was going on, the punitive battalion noticed it and opened fire. The bullet passed me by.

Through the cracks I could see how they gathered hay and were pouring gasoline. People went out of their minds from fear, realizing that they were to be burned.”

My mother and I stood right by the locked barn doors, and I could see between the planks of the barn wall how they piled up hay against the wall, which they then set on fire. When the burning roof caved in the people and people’s clothes caught on fire, everybody threw themselves against the doors, which broke open.

The punitive squad stood around the barn and opened fire on the people, who were

running in all directions. We made it five or six meters from the doors of the barn,

then my mom pushed me to the ground, and we both lay there. I wanted to get up,

but she pressed my head down: “Don’t move, son, lie still.”

Something hit me hard in my arm. I was bleeding. I told my mom, but she didn’t answer—she was already dead.

How long I was lying there, I don’t know. Everything around me was burning,

even my mother’s clothes had begun to glow. Afterwards I realized that the punitive

squad had left and the shooting had ended, but still I waited awhile before I got up.

The barn had burned down, burned corpses lay all around. Someone moaned: “drink… ”

I ran, brought water, but to no avail, in front of my eyes the Khatyn villagers died one

after another. Terrible, painful deaths…

Yusif Kaminsky and his family, together with Anton Kunkevitch, were likewise herded into the barn. When the barn roof collapsed, Yusif and a number of other villagers were pressed into the door of the barn, which then burst open. Yusif stumbled forward, his clothes on fire. The Germans and their Ukrainian proxies opened fire on Yusif and the others. Yusif was hit in the leg and fell to the ground, unconscious. The others were killed. Yusif’s wounds and his burned body and smoldering clothes led the Germans and Ukrainians to believe he was dead.

Yusif regained consciousness after the Nazis had left. He searched the still smoldering bodies of his fellow villagers that surrounded him, looking for his family. Finally, he came upon the body of his 15-year-old son, Adam. Badly burned and shot in the stomach, Adam was still alive when Yusif found him. The father picked up his son and started to carry him to safety, but the boy died in his arms.

Yusif stumbled through the forest before reaching the neighboring village of Mokred. “I saw how the entire village was burned”, he said to the shocked villagers. The next day they and villagers from other surrounding villages made their way to Khatyn.

The village and its occupants were no more.

Yusif Kaminsky survived the war, and lived to see the memorial to Khatyn constructed, together with the statue of him carrying the body of his son. Kaminsky retired to a neighboring village some seven kilometers away. But for a decade after the memorial was built, Kaminsky would make the walk to the memorial, where he would stand by the ruins of his former home, in the shadow of the statue marking the most horrific moment of his life and share his thoughts and memories with visitors. “I owe it to the memory of my family,” he explained.

Yusif Kaminsky passed away in 1979.

Some 627 Belorussian villages were subjected to the “Khatyn treatment” by the Nazis, their entire populations herded into barns and burned to death. In total, more than 3.1 million Belarussians were killed by the Nazis—one in every three of its citizens. More than 12,000 villages were destroyed. Many of the perpetrators of this crime, including members of the 118^th Polic Battalion, escaped justice by taking refuge in Canada, whose Ukrainian diaspora is marked by its pro-Bandera ideology. And today many Ukrainian soldiers proudly wear patches depicting the crossed stick grenade emblem of the Dirlewanger SS-Sonderbattalion.

If there was ever a justification for a memorial such as the one that exists in Khatyn, it is this disgusting refusal by the West to condemn the criminal ideology of those who today openly resurrect the murderous legacy of Nazi Germany’s genocide of the Belarussian people.

Stare long and hard at this statue.

Look at the slain body of his son.

Examine the pain and grief etched into the face of this man.

Say his name:

Yusif Kaminsky.

And never forget the crimes man can commit against his fellow man.

I want to give special thanks to my guide, Anna Papko, who brought the horrible memories of Khatyn to life for me. She has an unenviable job which she conducts with grace and humanity. She views it as necessary work.

She is right.

I am currently travelling in Russia, conducting interviews of prominent Russians in order to help capture the Russian reality and bring it to an American audience. This article was motivated by a visit to the Khatyn Memorial on November 12, 2025. If you want to see more articles like this, please subscribe. And if you want to help make possible more trips such as this, please donate.

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Sometimes it seems to me that the soldiers,

Which haven’t returned from blood’s fields,

Haven’t layed in our land,

But have turned into white cranes.

War is the ultimate form of human tragedy, the organized act of humans slaughtering humans. While war is logically to be avoided, often the conflict between humankind manifests itself violently. Rarely, however, do such conflicts allow for a clear delineation between right versus wrong, good versus evil.

The Soviet fight against Nazi Germany during the Second World War is one of these historical rarities. It should come as no surprise that the people who suffered so greatly in such a horrible yet just cause would seek to memorialize this suffering, and the victory born of it, with monuments that enable future generations to never forget the sacrifices made so that future generations might live free of the same tyranny which once stalked the soil of Mother Russia.

The battle for Stalingrad has been carved into the Pantheon of history’s most epic battles. This titanic struggle on the shores of the Volga River caused some 1.37 million Red Army casualties and claimed the lives of another 235,000 civilians. It has been called ‘the most brutal clash of arms in the most terrible of twentieth-century wars”, and the “the most important military-political event of World War II”. Germany would never recover from this defeat, and for this reason the battle for Stalingrad has been described by many as the turning point in the war against fascist Germany.

From those distant times

They fly and we hear their voices.

Is it because so often and so sadly

We are falling silent and looking into heaven?

Conceived and designed in the 1950’s, built in the 1960’s, and unveiled in 1967, the giant state mounted atop the Mamayev Kurgan hill in the city of Volgograd stands 285 feet tall. “The Motherland Calls” is but one of scores of statues that, together, make up the memorial to the Battle of Stalingrad. But this one dominates all others, a soaring tribute to a nation and the spirit of its people. Standing on a hill which—literally—serves as the final resting place of tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers and Soviet civilians alike, “The Motherland Calls” is a powerful manifestation of a nation willing and able to sacrifice its individual citizens by the millions in defense of the greater good.

“The Motherland Calls” confronts Europe and the lands that gave birth to the fascist enemy that met its fate in and around the city that bore Stalin’s name (in addition to the German soldiers who fell or were captured, hundreds of thousands of Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian troops perished at the hands of the Red Army.) But she beckons the strength of Russia that stretches back through Siberia and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The strength and determination of a nation and its people is manifest in this glorious monument, evoking powerful emotions to those who have looked upon it.

The symbolism of a mother beckoning to her sons to go forth to defend the motherland is juxtaposed by another monument, “Mother’s Sorrow”, which depicts a Soviet mother cradling the slain body of her son, surrounded by a lake of tears. Here the harsh truth or war is laid bare for all to see, the reality of the consequences of conflict and the horrible cost paid by those who are called upon to participate.

The tired crane flock flies, flies through the sky,

Flies in the mist at the end of the day.

And it is a small gap in this order -

Perhaps this place is for me.

The Mamayev Kurgan Memorial was built to honor the Soviet dead of Stalingrad, to ensure that their sacrifice would never be forgotten, and their deeds forever remembered.

It is a memorial to victory.

Outside the City of Rzhev, located in the Rzhevsky District of the Tver Oblast, about two hours travel by car west of Moscow, is another memorial to the fallen of the Great Patriotic War. “The Memorial to the Soviet Soldier” commemorates sacrifices made by the Red Army at the same time the Battle of Stalingrad raged. From January 1942 to March 1943 a series of battles were fought in and around Rzhev which, according to official Soviet sources, killed 392,554 Red Army soldiers and wounded another 768,233. Yet in 2007, Russian historians began publishing a different account, which listed the total killed as being in excess of 2 million. It is not without justification that these battles have collectively become known as the “Rzhev meatgrinder”, and the leadership behind the decisions that led so many men to their deaths being openly criticized. Moreover, the Rzhev battles were, at best, a stalemate, and at worst a Soviet defeat.

Soviet authorities, for cause, did not wish to shine a light on such battles. For them, the Great Patriotic War should be celebrated as a decisive victory over fascism.

There would be no memorial to the fallen at Rzhev.

That is, until a revitalized Russia decided that the sacrifice of all who fell in battle should be recognized.

The Memorial to the Soviet Soldier was opened in 2020. Its design is brutally effective, drawing from the old Russian belief that when a soul dies it is taken to the heavens by a white crane.

The base of the monument consists of a swirl of bronze cranes, emerging from the soul, representing the souls of soldiers long forgotten, and only now remembered

The day will come, and in such crane flock

I’ll swim in the same blue-gray haze.

Calling out like a bird from the heavens

All of you who are left on earth.

It is difficult to understand the strength of the symbolism in this statue, knowing that one is standing on the ground which covered the bodies of so many Soviet fallen that had, for decades, been forgotten and forsaken by a nation which is grounded in preserving the memory of those who fell defeating Nazi Germany.

The cranes swirl, coming together to form the body of a single Soviet Soldier, weapon in hand, looking back down on the ground from which he came. No mother beckons for her sone to come to his defense, and no mother cradles his dead body in her arms. Instead, this soldier stands, strong but forlorn, a symbol of abject sorrow and unspeakable pain.

The Soviet soldiers who died in and around Rzhev helped shape the events that governed the Soviet victory at Stalingrad. The meatgrinder attacks against dug-in German defenders served two primary purposes—to convince the Germans that the main Russia offensive in the winter of 1942-43 would be at Rzhev, and to pin down German divisions that would have otherwise been released to relieve the surrounded German soldiers in Stalingrad.

If it weren’t for the Soviet soldiers who gave their lives in Rzhev, there would have been no victory at Stalingrad, and as such no “The Motherland Calls” statue.

Standing in the shadow of the statue of the Soviet Soldier, one can’t help but feel the ground move as these long-forgotten souls surge forth, freed by the refreshed memory of a nation. The souls move through your body, their energy moving to the statue. Your eyes cannot help but meet the gaze of the soldier staring down at you in a strong yet pained expression, silently asking the question, “Why have you forsaken me for so long?”

It is a question nobody can adequately answer, a reflection of the reality that a nation that forsakes its fallen will never truly learn the costs and consequences of war.

Today Russia remembers.

Sometimes it seems to me that the soldiers,

Which haven’t returned from blood’s fields,

Haven’t layed in our land,

But have turned into white cranes.

“Zhuravili (Cranes)”, Rasul Gamzatov

I am currently travelling in Russia, conducting interviews of prominent Russians in order to help capture the Russian reality and bring it to an American audience. This article was motivated by a visit to the Memorial to the Soviet Solder on November 8, 2025. If you want to see more articles like this, please subscribe. And if you want to help make possible more trips such as this, please donate.

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If this sounds like the set up to a classic joke, it isn’t.

It’s just the reality of Moscow, the capital city of Russia, which possesses some of the most vibrant and diverse nightlife in the world.

And, over the course of one magical weekend in October, during the occasion of RT’s 20 Anniversary, the wonderful diversity of Moscow was enhanced by the presence of thousands of foreign guests who were flown in to help celebrate this important milestone.

I was fortunate enough to be included in this company.

The Genatsvale Restaurant on Arbat Street is a Moscow social landmark. The term “genatsvale” is a very special phrase in Georgian that cannot be fully translated in English. It loosely means, “Let me take your burden if you are ever in need,” or “I give myself to you,” and is like saying “I love you” to a close friend or family member.

As soon as one enters the environs of the Genatsvale Restaurant you can feel the love of its owner, Mamuka Pipia, a Georgian businessman and entrepreneur who has made Moscow his home for the past three-plus decades. Mamuka also serves as the International Secretary of the Solidarity for Peace Party, where he works tirelessly in the cause of restoring full diplomatic, economic and cultural ties between Georgia and Russia. His work in this regard has produced important results—in 2024, Mamuka helped spearhead legislation in Russia which led to the restoration of air traffic between Georgia and Russia, as well as visa-free travel between the two nations by their respective citizens.

I originally met Mamuka in August, during my week of “Citizen Diplomacy” conducted in concert with the National Unity Club, of which Mamuka is a member. Mamuka had graciously agreed to convert one of the Genatsvale dining halls into an impromptu studio from which I could conduct a series of “fireside chats” with notable Russian personalities. He also provided the hospitality of his restaurant to the members of the Club and I, keeping us well fed throughout what was a grueling week of interviews.

But dining at a Georgian restaurant is unlike any other dining experience in the world, especially when you’re in the role of invited guest of a Georgian host.

The Georgian table is a unique combination of sights, smells, tastes, and sound. It is an all-encompassing journey through a gastronomic wonderland where “no thank you” always means more food will be put on your plate. And the food never seems to end, exotic-sounding dishes made from the best ingredients in the world—Khachapuri, the traditional Georgian dish of cheese-filled bread (it comes in several variations, depending on where in Georgia you are at, Khinkali, a kind of dumpling made of twisted knobs of dough, stuffed with spiced meat or vegetables, and Satsivi, a dish made of chicken cooked in a garlic-walnut sauce, are just a sample of the appetizers that one will be plied with upon being seated at the Georgian table. Then comes the meat, piles and piles of it: lamb, chicken, beef, in every possible grilled configuration known to mankind.

Then more intermediary appetizers—Seleguni cheese, Ghomi (Georgian cornbread), Lobio (Georgian beans), and more.

Then more meat.

But the Georgian table is about so much more than food. It is about conversation, laughter, tears, embraces, and music, and dancing.

And drinking and toasting.

The Georgian table is an all-encompassing experience.

The Georgian table is the living embodiment of the meaning of the Georgian word “genatsvale”.

And the Genatsvale Restaurant is the epitome of what the word “genatsvale” means.

The fact that such a unique Georgian culinary and cultural experience is in the center of Moscow is no accident—Georgia and Russia have a long and complicated history that dates to the 15th century, when the once-unified Christian Kingdom of Georgia had fragmented into smaller states that were vulnerable to the expansive Islamic Ottoman and Persian empires. The shared Orthodox Christian faith between Georgia and Russia laid a foundation for early diplomatic contacts, culminating in 1783 when Russia and Georgia signed the Treaty of Georgievsk establishing the Russian protectorate over the East Georgia. Continued hostility with Iran and Turkey led to the annexation of Georgia into Russia in 1801. This kingdom included the territory known as Shida Kartli, which encompasses what is today known as South Ossetia, and was included in this territory. Other Georgian principalities followed; in 1803 Mingrelia became a subject of Russia, in 1804 it was Imeretia and Guria, and in 1810 – Abkhazia. The victory of Russia in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 saw the Georgian territory of Adjara, which had fallen to the Ottomans in the 16^th century, finally brought returned to Georgian control, albeit under Russian rule.

The integration of Georgia into the Russian Empire was not seamless—the resentment on the part of Georgian nobility at what they deem the betrayal of the Russian Tsars to honor commitments about retaining Georgian continuity when it came to the direct governance of Georgian territories provided a major blemish when it came to Russian-Georgian integration. With the collapse of the Romanov dynasty, and with it the Russian Empire, in 1917, Georgia, along with the other Transcaucasian territories that had been incorporated into greater Russia—Armenia and Azerbaijan—declared its independence. But this moment was short lived, as the Red Army of Bolshevik Russia seized control, and Georgia was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, initially as a state within the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and in 1936 a Soviet republic on its own.

Joseph Stalin, born Ioseb Jughashvili, was a Georgian, as were Lavrentiy Beria, Vsevolod Merkulov and Sergo Goglidze (all senior Soviet security officers who were purged after Stalin’s death in 1953.) More than 700,000 Georgians served in the Red Army during the Second World War, and more than 190,000 lost their lives. My wife’s family, the Khatiashvili’s, lost several men in the war, including a boy of 18 whose remains were buried in a mass grave in Poland. Her grandfather was a Soviet doctor who accompanied the Red Army into Berlin in 1945.

It is notable that it was Georgian, Meliton Kantaria, and Russian, Mikhail Egorov, who raised the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag in May 1945.

During the Great Patriotic War around 30,000 Georgians fought on the side of Nazi Germany. While most of these Georgians were former officers and soldiers in the army of the short-lived Georgian Republic who fled to Europe when the Red Army took over in 1921, their ranks included several thousand Georgians from the Red Army who had been taken prisoner by the Germans after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Georgian Legion, as this formation was known, became a symbol of anti-Soviet/anti-Russian sentiment among Georgians in diaspora, and continues to exist to this day in Ukraine.

The reality, however, is that most of the Georgian people had thoroughly integrated themselves into Soviet life, serving in the military, being educated in Soviet universities, and working as part of the Soviet nomenklatura. At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more than 130,600 ethnic Georgians were living in Russia. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1992, a combination of complex political developments and economic difficulties in Georgia led to a significant Georgian migration into the Russian Federation.

Two of these “complex political developments” involved the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which sought independence from Georgia following the breakup of the Soviet Union that resulted in fierce fighting that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands of others.

It turned out that Mamuka and I had several things in common. We had both married Georgian women, and both of our wives are linked to the Shonia family from Kutaisi (Margarita, Mamuka’s wife, is herself a Shonia, while my wife’s mother, Lamara, was a Shonia.) Both Mamuka and Marina were born and raised in Sukhumi, the capital city of Abkhazian Georgia.

And both lost their childhood homes in the aftermath of the 1992-93 Abkhazian War, Mamuka taking refuge in Moscow, and Marina’s parents coming to live with us in the US (Marina’s brother, like Mamuka, moved to Moscow, where he got married and raised a family as a citizen of Russia.)

One of the issues that will need to be resolved as part of the “normalization” of relations between the US and Russia will be the status of Georgia. Like Ukraine, Georgia sought to align itself with the West following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in 2008 initiated steps that would lead to the amendment of the Georgian Constitution to make a pathway to Georgian membership in NATO and the European Union a matter of law. The trigger event for this action was the short but violent Russian-Georgian War of August 2008, triggered when the Georgian military moved to bring the territory of South Ossetia, which had been existing in a quasi-independent fashion since 1992 under the protection of Russian peacekeeping forces stationed there as part of a peace agreement reached between Russia, Georgia, and South Ossetian separatists. This military adventure ended badly for Georgia, which saw its army routed on the field of battle by superior Russian forces, and saw the Russian government recognize the independence of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia as a result.

When I arrived in Moscow to attend the RT 20^th Anniversary Gala, I made it a point to call Mamuka and arrange a meeting (it turned out Mamuka had tickets to the event as well.) I wanted Mamuka to meet Judge Andrew Napolitano and Larry Johnson, two fellow Americans who were with me in Moscow, so we agreed to gather at the Genatsvale Restaurant on Saturday evening. A Georgian table is not a Georgian table, however, without a sizable gathering of friends and family, so by the time the Judge, Larry and I arrived, we had quite the ensemble assembled. In addition to Mamuka, his wife Margarita, and the three Americans, we had Alexander Kazakof, a member of the National Unity Club, and Natalia, an interpreter who had helped with the interview Judge Napolitano and Larry Johnson had done earlier that afternoon with Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Minister. Mamuka had also invited two RT produces, Margo and Daria, and I was joined by Alexandra Madornaya, the producer of The Russia House.

Mamuka had invited one other guest: Fridon Injia, the Chairman of the Samegrelo Council of Elders and a former Member of the Parliament of Georgia. Fridon was in Moscow to hold discussions with the Georgian diaspora about how Georgia should preserve and strengthen its relationship with Russia. Fridon strongly believed that Georgia needed to establish a direct official dialogue with the Russian Federation, the sooner the better. The work of Fridon and the other Georgians in diaspora was complicated by the current domestic political reality transpiring

The domestic political situation inside Georgia could not be ignored, given the strong anti-Russian bias that existed amongst the pro-Western opposition to the ruling Georgian Dream government. Fridon and others were critical of Georgian Dream’s perceived tolerance of the anti-Russian opposition, which they viewed as a destructive force inside Georgia.

For Fridon and the other members of the Georgian diaspora, dialogue with Russia was not a sign of weakness, but rather a mature position based on the interests of Georgia. But around the Georgian table that had been assembled at the Genatsvale restaurant, the issue wasn’t so much the theory of Georgian-Russian dialogue, but rather the precise topics that needed to be discussed. Fridon, like Mamuka and me (via Marina), all had a personal stake in the issue of Abkhazia. Fridon was in Sukhumi up until the moment it fell and was part of the tragic escape through the Kodori Gorge that took so many lives of the Georgians who had to flee for their lives when Sukhumi fell.

The Georgian table fell silent as I recounted the experiences of Marina’s father, Bidzina, who at the age of 63 found himself drafted into the Sukhumi garrison along with the other faculty members of the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture and given the task of guarding the Kelasuri River bridge, which marked the southern border of the city of Sukhumi. I told how Bidzina had been amongst the last of the bridge’s defenders, keeping open the last escape route for the Georgian citizens of Sukhumi fleeing the advance of the Abkhazian rebels and their allies until he ran out of ammunition. Then and only then did Bidzina join the stream of wretched humanity that trekked more than 250 kilometers over the coastal Caucasus mountain range, through the treacherous Chuberi Pass during an unexpected blizzard that left many elderly and young dead from exposure to the elements.

Fridon asked if Bidzina had mentioned the helicopters that had been dispatched by Georgian authorities to help with the evacuation. Yes, I replied, Bidzina did speak of the helicopters, noting that one had crashed shortly after taking off with a load of refugees, killing all 15 persons aboard.

Fridon then said that he was the man responsible for this airlift, having personally gone to Ukraine to assemble a squadron of 17 Mi-8 helicopters, flown by Ukrainian pilots, which over the course of several days in October 1993 made 291 flights that rescued 7,643 Georgian refugees left stranded in the mountains.

Fridon’s words caused us all to pause and reflect on the reality that, in Georgia’s moment of greatest need, it was Ukraine that came to their assistance.

Seated to my right during this entire conversation was Margo, a producer from RT who specialized in packaging stories about Russia for international consumption. She had quietly listened as Fridon and I recounted the tragedy of Sukhumi. When Fridon’s revelation about the role played by Ukraine in rescuing Georgian refugees prompted a pause in our discussion, she weighed in on the topic of refugees.

“I was also a refugee,” she said. “In August 2008 my family and I were driven out of our home in Tskenvali (the capital of South Ossetia) by the fighting that accompanied the Georgian army as it advanced.” Margo went on to describe the plight of some 30,000 South Ossetians who, like the Georgians of Sukhumi, had been driven from their ancestral homes because of an advancing enemy force. “All we had was the clothes of our backs and what we could throw into small bags we carried with us.” Margo was a newly married bride at the time, a South Ossetian woman who viewed the Georgian military as the enemy. “We were saved by the Russians,” she said. “They provided us with security, food and shelter, and helped us evacuate through the mountains into North Ossetia.”

The similarity between the predicament of the Georgians fleeing Sukhumi and the South Ossetians fleeing Tskenvali was apparent to everyone seated around the Georgian table that evening. Fridon and I had been emphasizing the fact that there could not be normalized relations between Russia and Georgia without an equitable resolution of the Abkhazian issue. It suddenly dawned on me that the issue was even more complex than I had thought. I turned to Margo and asked her if she ever thought Georgians and South Ossetians could ever live together as citizens of the same land, meaning Georgia.

She hesitated for a moment, catching her thoughts, before responding.

“Georgians and South Ossetians have lived together, side by side, for many years. We know each other. We have married into each other’s families. This fighting and forced separation is not natural. It is not who we are.”

She paused and then continued. “There is, of course, political questions that must be answered, and to which there may be no apparent answer. This is a matter for politicians. But as far as the people are concerned, Georgians and South Ossetians will have no problem living together in peace, because this is the natural state of our relations.”

The term “genatsvale” is a very special phrase in Georgian that cannot be fully translated in English. It loosely means, “Let me take your burden if you are ever in need,” or “I give myself to you,” and is like saying “I love you” to a close friend or family member.

As Margo’s words sunk in, there, in the Genatsvale Restaurant, seated among the cornucopia of delicacies that comprised Mamuka’s Georgian table, the unspoken emotions that made the term “genatsvale” what it is were absorbed into the being of all present, lifting the burden of war and conflict from our persons, and replacing it with the kind of love that humanity is supposed to have for one another, but which is all too often lacking in our daily existence.

Margo reminded us that we are all, in the end, the same.

Fridon looked at her and smiled.

“Shen genatsvale.”

You are “genatsvale.

And the Georgian table was perfect.

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