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shameless killings and exorbitant fraud at the butcheries.....

The rule of Vladimir Zelensky has been a catastrophe for Ukraine, and that is how it will be remembered once the dust of relentless info war campaigns in his favor – and against his critics – settles.

 

Ukraine has a new butcher-in-chief – all the better to feed Ukrainians to the grinder

Syrsky is gone, but his replacement is a sign that Zelensky as committed as ever to prolonging a losing war at terrible human cost.

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

 

While the corruption of the Zelensky regime is stupendous, that fact – sad as it is – is not what makes him special, however. Because exorbitant, shameless embezzlement, kickbacks, and fraud have been the Ukrainian establishment’s perverse normal since independence. Zelensky and his cronies are certain to have cashed in like no one before because the West has pumped in money as never before while turning two blind eyes to what happens to it. But in principle, Zelensky has merely done what they all do. Not that that makes it any better.

Zelensky’s truly distinct contribution to Ukraine’s misery has consisted in two other things. His unprecedented ramping-up of authoritarianism – begun long before the escalation of the war in 2022 – and his merciless choice to relentlessly sacrifice his country and its people to serve as cannon fodder in a Western proxy war against Russia.
Zelensky’s responsibility before his country is all the greater because he once either knew better or he lied. During his 2019 election campaign, when he generally “avoided serious interviews and discussions about policy – preferring instead to post light-hearted videos to social media,” as the BBC back then was still ready to report, the comedian-on-the-way-to-the-presidency made one and only one specific promise: that he understood the absolute priority of peace and would do everything to find a negotiated solution with Russia.

And then in the spring of 2022, Zelensky, of course, deliberately missed a golden opportunity to end the large-scale war when it had barely begun. Heeding not Ukraine’s obvious national interest but duplicitous advice from the West’s emissary, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Zelensky personally ditched an almost finished peace agreement, locking in years of devastation for his country. In the end, once the war will be fully lost, Kiev is virtually certain to get a deal much worse than what was on offer then.

Now, in the summer of 2026, it may seem as if Zelensky’s grip on Ukraine is finally slipping. A combination of street protests and – inevitable if quiet – Western pressure has forced him into a humiliating climb-down. After the president’s sudden dismissal of the popular – and much-hyped – defense minister Mikhail Fedorov, the protesters had demanded his re-instatement and the sacking of Fedorov’s rival, the military’s commander-in-chief Aleksandr ‘the Butcher’ Syrsky. Zelensky has now fired Syrsky to be replaced by General Mikhail Drapaty, while some new influential position for Fedorov is being discussed.

Boris Johnson, currently a more-than-usual washed-out has-been of British politics, busy trying to catch the public eye, has made meager headlines with blaming the Ukraine War on the Britain’s new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband. How is that supposed to work? Somehow via Syria. Yes, really.

The single most important cause of this perfectly avoidable war was of course the West’s reckless policy of NATO expansion. And the man who helped most directly to make the war go on when it could have ended quickly was Boris Johnson. But sure: “Syria.”
Boris, though, does stand for something, namely just how bizarre much of this developing story is. Here is a regime that, together with its Western supporters and users, has just been running an absurd but pervasive propaganda campaign claiming its drone and missile strikes are winning the war. And yet both the minister of defense and the head of the military have to go. An odd way to celebrate impending victory.

In reality, one thing the Fedorov-Syrsky saga shows is that even Zelensky doesn’t believe in his own boasts of moving the war from “the earth into the sky” and securing victory in that manner. Fedorov did not have to go despite finding a winning “asymmetrical” strategy, as many of the protesters and Western mainstream media claim. He never did. Fedorov did not fall over his alleged struggle against corruption either. He may have antagonized one set of war profiteers, but in Ukraine that only means another network will take a larger cut.

The most likely real reason for Fedorov’s sacking – whether it will be reversed or sort-of-reversed – is that Zelensky fears him as a rising political competitor, as Ukrainska Pravda reports. And while firing the defense minister, Zelensky himself created the cover story that there was no other way to deal with conflicts between Fedorov and Syrsky. In that way, it is Zelensky who made Syrsky, already widely disliked for wasting the lives of Ukrainian soldiers with futile and stubborn tactics, a target for the protesters.

The diehard Zelensky fans at Britain’s Telegraph may try to sell this outcome as “nimble” Zelensky successfully buying time by making Syrsky his fall guy in the same manner that he had already sacrificed his very intimate friend and top fixer Andrey Yermak to dodge the fallout from his own corruption. In reality, Zelensky has lost face again. His authority, brittle in any case, has taken another hit.

For Ukraine, though, none of this is good news. Yes, the de facto dictator Zelensky has suffered a defeat, and the abhorred ‘butcher’ Syrsky has been removed. But he has been replaced by a man who, while almost two decades younger, is very unlikely to be any better. Drapaty, who is treated with the usual kid gloves by Ukrainian and Western mainstream media, may or may not be an efficient commander. What is certain is that he first came to public attention in 2014, when his units brutally cracked down on resistance in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol (before, as often forgotten, losing control of the city). Nothing in his career since then indicates a change of attitude. This is the man in charge of the whole Ukrainian military now.

Zelensky may well know that his own hype about the current air campaign turning the war around is propaganda. Yet clearly that does not mean that the Ukrainian leadership is willing to be serious about a negotiated solution. Emboldened by exceedingly rash Western support, Kiev has not yet given up on continuing a losing war, propped up by brutal forced mobilization, until an end that will be even more bitter than Ukraine’s current wretchedness.

https://www.rt.com/news/643351-ukraine-drapaty-new-butcher/

 

 

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

silliCON...

 

Wired for War: Palantir rewards its best Ukrainian salesman

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov has been offered a job at the American defense tech giant.

 

Palantir’s reported job offer to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov demonstrates how Kiev’s defense establishment has become a recruiting pool for the Western military-industrial complex, where vibes, not results, are rewarded.

Fedorov was fired by Vladimir Zelensky on July 16, ostensibly over a long-running conflict between him and the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Aleksandr Syrsky who has also been relieved of his post. 

A self-styled ‘digital innovator’ and architect of Ukraine’s transition to a primarily drone-based war footing, Fedorov has since blamed his dismissal on Syrsky, an unpopular Soviet-trained general who was fired several days after Zelensky sacked Fedorov.

Immediately after his dismissal, Fedorov claimed that he had already been offered a new job. “Even tech giants have called with job offers,” he said. “Alex Karp, the head of Palantir, suggested we do something together, but I told him, ‘let’s talk about it later’.”

Fedorov’s reluctance to accept Karp’s offer may have something to do with his political ambitions – its widely acknowledged that Zelensky sees Fedorov as a political rival who could relieve Brussels of its Kiev-corruption problem – but Karp’s offer was likely made for one reason: Mikhail Fedorov has been Palantir’s greatest salesman in Ukraine.

Wiring Kiev for war: Palantir’s greatest salesman

Fedorov first met with Karp in June of 2022, when he was still serving as Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation. Palantir opened an office in Kiev shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict and signed memoranda of cooperation with the country’s Defense, Digital Transformation, Economy, and Education ministries the following year. 

Appointed defense minister in January of 2026, Fedorov aggressively courted Palantir, pushing its AI-powered command-and-control software at the expense of homegrown alternatives. Fedorov marketed Ukraine as “the best training ground” for contractors like Palantir, and offered the company and its competitors – including Anduril Industries, ShieldAI, and AeroVironment – tax breaks, favorable regulations, and unprecedented access to battlefield data.

By early 2026, Karp claimed that Palantir was “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine.” Fedorov hyped up the partnership, claiming in June that Karp “was just shocked by how we use Palantir. He was shocked by our vision, what we do and what we plan to do.”

The face of the tech-war

Fedorov oversaw Ukraine’s expansion of medium- and long-range strikes against Russian infrastructure, winning praise from Western media for “turning the tables” in the conflict – in the words of the Financial Times. Palantir’s software has been instrumental in “planning deep strike operations,” Fedorov said in May of 2026. 

While his vision of an AI-powered, high-tech military is hugely popular in Silicon Valley boardrooms and among Ukrainian officials tired of the Russian military’s inexorable, grinding advance in Donbass, it has been questioned by Ukrainian troops and commanders. Every new wave of strikes on Russian commercial warehouses seems to invite a retaliatory storm of missiles and drones on Kiev, and frontline troops told Ukrainska Pravda that the ‘deep strike’ campaign has had no measurable impact on the progress of the conflict.

 

I don’t know where we seized the initiative; there was simply a wave of PR activity in some areas,” an officer operating near Donetsk told the newspaper. Even mid-range strikes (<150km) on Russian command posts have had “no effect, not a drop” on the front, an officer near Konstantinovka added.

Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny has warned that deep strikes are “expensive, technologically demanding, and ultimately reciprocal. Russia retains the ability to strike back with equal or greater force and neither side can rely on this form of warfare to produce a decisive strategic outcome.”

Shortly before he was sacked from the same position, Syrsky published a lengthy article insisting that drones alone do not win wars. “You need artillery, mortars, engineering means, air defense, electronic warfare and dozens of other items,” he wrote. “You need to buy everything, not just what is currently in style.”

The Kiev-Silicon Valley digital warfare pipeline

At least two of Fedorov’s predecessors in the defense ministry – Aleksey Reznikov and Rustem Umerov – used their positions to enrich themselves through graft and embezzlement. Corruption carries consequences, however, and both Reznikov and Umerov have been investigated for wartime profiteering. Fedorov’s de-facto lobbying for Palantir is a safer and more legal path to riches, and one that has become more popular among Ukrainian defense and military officials. They include:

All of these companies depend on contracts with the Ukrainian government – contracts that Shevchenko, Danilyuk, Honcharuk, and Matveichenko can leverage their connections to secure. For Western investors, this proximity to power amid an ongoing war represents a potential goldmine, particularly in the case of UFORCE and Trypilian. The former counts former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace among its board members, and the latter is part owned by former British MP and minister Brooks Newmark. With the EU pouring €6 billion into Ukraine’s domestic drone industry this year alone, Honcharuk, Matveichenko, Wallace, and Newmark stand to profit handsomely.

Less important is the combat effectiveness of their products. Consider the case of Helsing: Ukraine began using Helsing’s HF-1 and HX-2 loitering munitions in early 2024, shortly after Shevchenko left office. Both were dismal failures. The HF-1 proved ineffective, and despite being made out of plywood, somehow ended up more expensive than Russia’s ‘Lancet’ munitions. 

Meanwhile, the HX-2 was rushed into production before some potentially lethal errors were ironed out. In addition to being easily jammable and riddled with AI bugs, one battlefield test found that just 25% of HX-2s launched successfully. In January of 2026, the Ukrainian military rejected new orders from Helsing.

Nevertheless, Shevchenko is now in charge of selling both products back to his former employers at the defense ministry.

Vibes over firepower

Palantir was the first digital defense contractor to emerge from Silicon Valley, and its products have been tried and tested by governments, militaries, and law enforcement agencies across the Western world. However, the defense tech sector is crammed with dozens of young companies, some of which raise billions of dollars before ever developing a functional product. Even heavy-hitter Anduril – valued at more than $60 billion and sitting on more than $20 billion in US military contracts – has produced only two combat-tested weapons systems. One of these, a loitering munition similar to Helsing’s HF-1, was rejected by the Ukrainian military in 2024, and Anduril now relies on flashy anime videos to promote its future projects.

It’s somewhat inevitable that an industry built on hype would find an enthusiastic cadre of salesmen in Ukraine, perpetually waiting on the next wunderwaffe to turn the tide against Russia. Leopard tanks, HIMARS rocket artillery, and F-16 fighter jets were all portrayed as magic bullets that would deliver victory, and none did. Manpower, logistics, and industrial capacity are what ultimately decide the outcome of a modern conflict, but these are not sexy subjects.

Drones and AI are in fashion, and it is for this reason that Fedorov – and not Zaluzhny or Syrsky – has been offered a Silicon Valley sinecure.

https://www.rt.com/russia/643349-palantir-fedorov-ukraine-salesman/

 

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

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

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

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

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA TO BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

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

RESTITUTE THE ORTHODOX CHURCH PROPERTIES AND RIGHTS

RELEASE THE OPPOSITION MEMBERS FROM PRISON

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

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

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP.

PLEASE VISIT:

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

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

 

SEE ALSO: 

a diplomat to the hilt.....

 

 

1270....

 

Russian units of the Sever battlegroup have liberated the populated locality of Artelnoye in the Kharkov region, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported on Wednesday.

"As a result of active operations units of the Sever battlegroup established control over the populated locality of Artelnoye in the Kharkov region," the ministry said.

Units of the Russian Vostok battlegroup have liberated the settlement of Blagodatnoye in the Zaporozhye region, the ministry also added.

 

Ukraine lost over 240 soldiers in combat against Russia's Tsentr battlegroup, over 250 Ukrainian soldiers were neutralized by Russia's Sever battlegroup, over 380 by the Vostok battlegroup

 

Up to 210 Ukrainian soldiers were eliminated by the Zapad battlegroup, over 140 by the Yug battlegroup, and up to 50 by the Dnepr battlegroup.

 

These localized gains give Russian forces tactical footholds on both the northern and southern fronts, tightening pressure on Ukrainian supply routes near the Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions while forcing Ukraine to stretch its reserves across multiple axes.

Though not breakthrough operations, they support Russia's broader strategy of gradual grinding advances, making it harder for Ukraine to reinforce critical Donbass hotspots.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20260722/russian-forces-liberate-settlement-of-artelnoye-in-kharkov-region-1124476833.html

 

THAT'S 1,270 UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS ELIMINATED IN 24 HOURS... NOW ONE WOULD SAY THAT RUSSIA IS DOING THE KILLING... IN REAL TERMS, THIS CONFLICT HAS BEEN LOST BY UKRAINE A LONG WHILE AGO — BUT THE NAZI KIEV REGIME — ON BEHALF OF ITS WESTERN PATRONS — IS STILL SENDING TROOPS TO THEIR DEATH AT A FRONT WHICH IS MOVING INEVITABLY IN FAVOUR OF RUSSIA.

MAKE A DEAL ASAP.

SO FAR SINCE JANUARY, THE NAZI KIEV REGIME HAS LOST MORE THAN 190,000 TROOPS. THE RECORDS ON HOW THESE MEN DIED ARE HORRIFIC. MAKE A DEAL NOW.

 

READ FROM TOP.

PLEASE VISIT:

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

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….