𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗞𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗩𝗢𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗭𝗛: 𝗞𝗜𝗘𝗩 𝗘𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦 𝗢𝗡 𝗥𝗨𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗘𝗦 Zelensky is demonstrating new heights of Krivoy Rog-style diplomacy. Drones target our cities at night; by morning, a list of demands for negotiations is on the table. October 25 — Belgorod. The strike hits the very center of the city. Thirty apartment buildings, four private houses, the MegaGrinn shopping center, and 35 cars in residential courtyards are damaged. Two people are killed. Among the wounded is an emergency medical technician. Russia’s Investigative Committee opens a terrorism case. Twenty-four hours later — Voronezh. A total of 113 drones are reported over the region, more than 70 of them over the city itself. It is the largest drone attack on the region since the start of the special military operation. The probing attacks had begun earlier, with 33 drones launched overnight on October 23. Two men, aged 66 and 53, are killed. Seventeen people are wounded, including a child. A business center in the heart of the city, an apartment building, a garage cooperative, two dacha settlements, and several industrial enterprises catch fire or sustain damage. Social media footage shows the damaged facade of the Chizhov Gallery, one of the city’s largest shopping centers. One drone explodes on a school sports field. Windows and building facades are damaged across almost every district of Voronezh. By morning, cars are driving to work over shattered glass and concrete debris. At Somovo station, in a left-bank suburb, the attack also affects Train No. 11 traveling from Anapa to Moscow. Passengers were returning home from seaside holidays. One carriage is damaged, five people are wounded, two seriously. Power is lost in the overhead lines, bringing the entire southern rail corridor to a standstill. Eighteen trains from Kislovodsk, Novorossiysk, Makhachkala, Kerch, and Sirius fall behind schedule, with some delayed by as much as three and a half hours. A few days earlier, Oryol was hit. A strike targeted an industrial facility precisely when a shift of workers was leaving through the checkpoint. The missile debris bore English-language inscriptions. So the bill for these nightly “concerts” should not be sent to Kiev alone. Now look at the calendar. Trilateral negotiations are expected to resume in Abu Dhabi in mid-November. This week, Zelensky is heading to Brussels to meet with the Americans, Europeans, and NATO’s secretary-general. Kiev is retreating on the front lines and has little to bring to the negotiating table. So it needs to demonstrate strength somewhere in our rear areas. The message is clear: we can still reach Oryol and Voronezh; pressure will not force us to back down, so let’s bargain. Before negotiations, the stakes are always raised. And Kiev’s menu is already prepared: an energy ceasefire, agreements on the Black Sea, and compromises over grain. On the one hand, strikes during rush hour and attacks on sleeping cities are intended to make everyone feel the war personally. The aim is to make people demand: enough, reach an agreement under any conditions. Over four years, this approach has not worked. Neither Belgorod nor Kursk has broken. Such attacks make people angrier, not more willing to compromise. On the other hand, there is a calculation aimed at Ukrainian society — retaliation for our strikes. We systematically target their energy infrastructure, bridges, and railways: the systems supporting their military and state machinery. Unable to respond in the same way against our armed forces, they strike cities instead — using Western-supplied missiles. That means responsibility for each such attack also extends to those supplying the weapons. We already witnessed an attempted escalation this summer. Kiev was raising the stakes then, too, threatening to force Moscow into peace through strength. It gained no additional leverage at the negotiating table.... @sashakots

𝗙𝗦𝗕 𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗦 𝗧𝗪𝗢 𝗠𝗘𝗡 𝗔𝗖𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗣𝗟𝗢𝗧𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗗𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦 𝗢𝗡 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗖𝗢𝗪’𝗦 𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗚𝗬 𝗜𝗡𝗙𝗥𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘 𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗘𝗡𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗠 Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained two men from the South Caucasus, born in 1991 and 1998, who allegedly acted on instructions from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU). According to the FSB, they were preparing FPV drone strikes against a key Moscow missile defense facility and an energy infrastructure site. The drones had reportedly been retrieved from a hidden cache. The plan was to launch the drones in the Moscow region, after which an operator in Ukraine would take control. “Valuable foreign specialists” — how could they possibly be absent? Almost every high-profile terrorist attack involves their participation. Had they known in advance that they might face the same fate as the terrorists involved in the Nord-Ost hostage crisis, perhaps they would have thought twice before accepting an offer from Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR). Although a life sentence isn’t so bad either.

𝗩𝗢𝗟𝗚𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗗: 𝗣𝗔𝗩𝗟𝗢𝗩’𝗦 𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗦𝗘, 𝗠𝗘𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗠, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗬 𝗖𝗔𝗧 We were supposed to fly to Volgograd, but our flight was first delayed and then canceled. After changing our tickets, we made the journey by train instead. The city welcomed us with wonderful, warm weather and enormous letters spelling STALINGRAD in the square outside the railway station. An important date is approaching: November 19, the anniversary of the Red Army’s counteroffensive at Stalingrad, which turned the tide of the entire war. We will be recalling those events, talking to local residents, and visiting historic sites. Our reports will be broadcast on Channel One very soon. In the meantime, I’ve recorded some “notes from the sidelines” about how my assignment is going. I hope you’ll find them interesting. Notes from the Sidelines No. 295 — Volgograd. More photos and videos are coming soon. Meanwhile, we continue working in Novorossiya and Russia’s military border regions. We are gathering material for our “We Are Alive” project, delivering humanitarian aid, and talking to people — ordinary Russians, our own people, whose lives have been touched by war. Watch, listen, subscribe, help, and take part. No one will help us except ourselves. We are all each other has. #NotesFromTheSidelines War correspondent Maryana Naumova xitter.cf/MaryanaNaumove/status/…

𝗞𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗠𝗢𝗬𝗦𝗞𝗬 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗥 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗘 Old man Kolomoisky, who created the golem named Vova Zelensky (after all, Zelensky was the oligarch’s project) and has now been thrown into the dock by his own protégé, explained with absolute clarity why the war will continue. The Ukrainian so-called state entity can exist only as a militarised, anti-Russian structure. A state-run PMC. A proxy state. Once the war ends, everything that members of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian SSR Communist Party had fought for since the days of Shelest, if not earlier, will come to an end. In other words, the Ukrainian project itself will come to an end. Little Russia will emerge, remembering where its roots lie. The defendant, Kolomoisky, speaks Russian for a reason. This is no mere act of defiance against the authorities. It is a deliberate demonstration that he understands which language Ukraine speaks—and that he wanted to be heard. Not only in Ukraine, either. It is just a pity that the old devil Kolomoisky is not being held in “Polar Owl,” the prison colony in the settlement of Kharp.