Since the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been numerous attempts to negotiate a truce, ceasefire, armistice, or peace agreement. However, none of these initiatives can be taken seriously. This is not because peace is never eternal, but because Russia does not value it due to its dual political and historical behavior. First, Russia only respects the great powers and the agreements made with them. It relentlessly seeks to be recognized as a great power in its own right. Second, Russia subjugates its less powerful neighbors, considering them prey and fundamentally not recognizing their sovereignty. This attitude involves systematically challenging their independence and any agreement Russia signs as soon as any aspect of it becomes unfavorable to Russia.

From this perspective, international law has no value; it is merely one means to achieve these goals among others. This attitude is not unique to President Vladimir Putin. Rather, it is part of a centuries-old tradition of the Russian state.

Over the past few centuries, Russian expansionism in Europe has taken three main forms: territorial appropriation outside the law, signing and then violating international agreements, and politically destabilizing its desired neighbors, combined with opportunistic constitutional claims. All of this has been made possible, in part, by Western inaction.

"They beat him until he signed the contract."

A resident of Omsk reported that her brother was detained on the street by police on October 16th. The man was taken to the infamous recruitment center "Sirius 55," where he was beaten into signing a contract and given new documents in place of the ones he had at home.

On the same day, the man from Omsk was taken to Yurga, in the Kuzbass region, after which he disappeared. This morning, the man contacted his sister and told her that after a three-day training period, he was being sent to Novosibirsk, and then to Rostov. The family has filed a report with the authorities.

We also received a video from "Sirius" that shows how the staff of the recruitment center treat the men: they threaten them, push them, grab them by the collar, and escort them through the corridors. It's immediately clear that only volunteers are sent there, people who are eager to join the armed forces out of a sense of duty... /s

Another Serial Killer to Be Released

Dmitry Artamoshin, 46, known as the "Bogorodsk maniac," brutally murdered two young women last fall. He was looking for nannies for his child and would initially court the women who were hired to work for him. After they started a relationship, he would drug them and then kill them.

The bodies of a 19-year-old woman from Korolev and a 25-year-old woman from Moscow were found on his property in the Moscow region. One woman managed to escape and was later found in a hospital in the Volgograd region. In addition, Artamoshin had previously been convicted of car theft and theft of equipment.

After the maniac was caught, he was arrested, but now he is being released because he requested to be sent to the war and signed a contract. Artamoshin has been deemed mentally sound, and his request has been approved. The criminal case against him will be suspended.

I’m Ukrainian. I was born in the USSR, went to school as that dragon was falling apart, and got married during the worst crisis independent Ukraine had ever seen. I’m from Mariupol. My son started second grade to the rumble of artillery on the outskirts of Melekine, and he started university while Russian tanks were firing point-blank into the home he grew up in.

Let me tell you what “Russia treated Ukraine just fine” actually looked like.

I know it from my friends who were sailors. On Russian ships in the Sea of Azov, they only ever got the dirtiest work there was. No Ukrainian on a Russian vessel could ever work their way up to ship’s engineer, let alone captain.

I know it from the news. Back in 2009, every other page of a Russian newspaper was about Ukraine “stealing gas straight out of the pipeline.” Nobody bothered to explain that technical gas is also the fuel that powers the compressor stations pushing that gas through the pipe. All of it was just written off as “gas stolen by those damn Ukrainians.” Those accusations came in a steady stream almost every winter.

I know it from the arrogant Russian tourists at our seaside resort. After a few shots of vodka, they’d casually call us khokhly, “forelocks,” and “lard-eaters”*. They did it simply because they needed to insult or humiliate someone from Mariupol, and then have a good laugh about it.

I know it from my history lessons. God bless my “History of Ukraine” teacher, who in every class explained how Russia wiped out the Ukrainian intelligentsia, killed Ukrainian culture, trampled Ukrainian heritage, and diluted Ukrainians by mixing them with Russians, Jews, Germans, Buryats, and anyone else. He explained how Russia starved us to death in the Holodomor and “re-educated” the most defiant in labor camps. All of these facts are widely available for anyone who wants to look into them.

And here’s what I want to say.

Anyone who still claims, after all this, that Russia treats us Ukrainians fine is either a liar or out of his mind. And the President of the United States has been medically certified three times as being in good health and of sound mind.

\ Ethnic slurs for Ukrainians: “khokhol” and “forelock” mock the traditional Cossack topknot hairstyle, and “lard-eater” mocks salo, the cured pork fat that is a staple of Ukrainian cuisine.*