Fedorov’s decision to push for a wartime election tacitly aligns himself with scum like Ivan Muskovy and trumputler. This has damaged his presidential ambitions possibly irreversibly.
“Putin is inching his way towards stealing all the Donbas.”
An uncomfortable truth.
Ukraine is once again in grave danger and once again the one country that could stop the carnage is aligning itself with child murderers and thieves.
Ye, formerly Kanye West, is going to Russia. What is in it for Putin?
Kanye is going to play in St. Petersburg in October – in an operation seemingly tailor-made for Russian state propaganda.
TWO GRUMPY OLD MEN ON UKRAINE
AUG 20
BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN
Kanye West, also known as Ye, has had concerts and performances cancelled in several European countries the last couple of years following a series of antisemitic remarks, including praise for Adolf Hitler, even selling T-shirts bearing swastikas and releasing a song titled “Heil Hitler”.
West apologised in January for the remarks, which he attributed to an undiagnosed brain injury and an untreated bipolar disorder.
Now he is going to Russia.
One wonders how Kanye intends to justify playing two concerts that will, without a shadow of a doubt, benefit Vladimir Putin’s regime – both financially and, perhaps more importantly, as propaganda.
Russian and German media speculate that Kanye will have his strong personal wish fulfilled: to meet Vladimir Putin.
“Russian fans rushed to secure tickets after the shows were announced on Monday. Nearly all of the most expensive tickets, costing upwards of $1,850, were snapped up within hours, according to the concerts’ website,” the Guardian reports. By the evening, all tickets were sold lout for the two concerts, 10th and 11th October.
After having been shunned in Europe, Kanye has found a more receptive audience elsewhere. Recently, in Istanbul he drew 118,000 fans, while 70,000 came to watch him in Tbilisi. Earlier this month, he also performed a sold-out show in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Western media agree that Kanye’s performances in Russia will be the most prominent Western music act to perform in Russia since the invasion.
The venue: Gazprom arena
The stadium that Kanye will be playing on the 10th and 11th of October is named after Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy giant. With a capacity of 70,000, it is the home of the football team Zenit St Petersburg – which is also owned by Gazprom.
Gazprom, of course, has been absolutely central to Putin’s grabbing and holding on to power. And the West has imposed sanctions on the energy giant over its financing of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
According to a Reuters investigation, Gazprom has paid an estimated $210 billion in taxes into the Russian state system since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
So you have an American cultural superstar performing before tens of thousands of people in a stadium carrying the name of one of the central sponsors of Putin’s regime and the invasion of Ukraine, and oppression of Russians.
Not exactly a neutral venue.
And certainly not an apolitical concert.
Kanye has long dreamed of meeting Putin
In other words, this is not just “Famous US rapper goes to Russia.”
Russia has spent years arguing that Western sanctions and cultural isolation have failed – and a huge American celebrity turning up for two stadium shows is extremely useful to that narrative, a pretty powerful image for Putin’s regime.
It produces exactly the image Russia wants the world to see:
Look. The West has not isolated us. The Americans are still coming.
Several Russian politicians close to Vladimir Putin have already speculated aloud about the two meeting. According to Russian media, Kanye has been looking for such a meeting since 2024, when a possible concert in Russia was first discussed.
In fact, one of the concert organisers say that “meeting with our president, Vladimir Putin, is a longstanding dream of Mr West’s.”
The politician Nikolay Novichkov – has criticised Kanye for his remarks praising Hitler, but suggests that such past silliness can be balanced out of the rapper now expresses “moral support for Russia and the special military operation.”
Another parliamentarian, Yelena Drapeko, who serves on the parliament’s Culture Committee, praised Kanye’s decision to come to Russia, saying she was grateful to him for doing so “against the backdrop of general anti-Russian hysteria” in the West.
You couldn’t write the propaganda script much better.
Talk about headlines tailor-made for Russian state propaganda
Oh, and when the two meet, the regime has the media setup ready to blast it out.
Because the people behind Kanye’s Russian concerts are connected to a rather ‘remarkable’ part of Russia’s information ecosystem.
Say Agency, the official organiser of Kanye’s concerts, works in partnership on this project with another event company called Inticket.
And 40% of Inticket is owned by VK or VKontakte – which is essentially Russia’s VK is essentially Russia’s Facebook + Instagram + YouTube + messaging + digital-services conglomerate.
And it has very close ties to the Russian state, as it is owned by – surprise-surprise – Gazprom Bank.
While Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, all have become heavily restricted or blocked in Russia, VK has become one of the pillars of the domestic Russian internet ecosystem and works closely with the authorities.
As RFE/RL concluded its investigation of the company:
“VKontakte is no ordinary Russian IT company; it is state-controlled and pursues ideological and intelligence goals.”
So, who exactly has booked Ye/Kanye to come sing and dance for the Russian dictator? And who is going to make sure the pictures of him doing it are seen by the rest of the world?
Bloated Ego, Bad Timing: Fedorov Calls for Elections While Russia Seizes Land
Mykhailo Fedorov is no longer defence minister, but he clearly still thinks he is the main character.
In a video address posted to YouTube on Tuesday, the ousted 35-year-old declared:
“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war.”
It is a grand line from a man with a bloated ego.
Yes, thousands demonstrated in Kyiv in support of Fedorov after his firing in July, just six months into the job. Yes, his reformist image and his public spat with army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi made him a folk hero for a few weeks.
But a street crowd of two thousand does not equal a mandate to rewrite the constitution in wartime.
Let us debunk the fantasy.
First, Ukrainian law explicitly prohibits elections under martial law.
Second, there is no “legal, safe and realistic mechanism” for what he proposes. Russia is intensifying its efforts to seize Ukrainian land.
Over 20% of the country is occupied, millions are displaced, soldiers are at the front, and air raid sirens interrupt every city daily. Who will attend rallies? Who will staff polling stations in Kharkiv or Sumy?
Third, Fedorov calls it a crisis of governance. The real crisis would be to pause the war effort to campaign for elections because one fired minister feels his reform was cut short.
This is a distraction, and it is dangerous. Ignore him.
Ukrainian spy chief predicts Putin’s plans: missile terrorism and Donbas meat-grinding (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,638)
* Do not expect any negotiations: the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence predicts what comes next.
* Putin’s goal has not changed: he wants to seize Donbas at any cost.
Kyiv faces a critical shortage of missiles for Patriot systems and is unable to cope with Russian ballistic missiles. The situation is so bad that Ukraine’s air force stopped publishing statistics on whether its air defence succeeds or fails against such attacks.
There will only be more such attacks, with horrific consequences, in Ukrainian cities as winter approaches. Despite mounting domestic problems and Ukrainian pressure causing serious difficulties for Russia’s economy, Vladimir Putin is not preparing to pursue peace negotiations.
He will continue terrorising Ukrainian civilians and waging an attritional war which, according to some voices, is turning into total war. The Russian dictator also dreams of conquering the whole of Donbas this winter — something he has failed to do for more than 12 years.
Several analysts are convinced that this is how events will develop, as is one of Ukraine’s best-informed figures, Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, acting director of the HUR military intelligence agency.
So what does HUR’s second-in-command say?According to Skibitskyi, nothing indicates that Putin is ready to cease fire at the front and begin peace negotiations. He will continue the offensive in eastern Ukraine and intensify attacks on Ukrainian cities, seeking to destroy as much as possible — not only energy infrastructure, but also heating plants, waterworks and every possible logistics hub, warehouse or filling station.
In short, everything that makes life more difficult for people in Ukraine.
According to analyst Vins, Ukraine is already de facto in a total war with Russia. “This winter, however, will be its culminating stress test. Russia will again use the cold as a weapon of mass destruction, shifting its focus from purely military targets to breaking the resilience of civilian society,” he told Denník N.
Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles BPA battalion of the 92nd Air Assault Brigade, summed it up for Unian by saying that a prolonged war was a key condition for Putin to retain his own power; he would try to frighten Ukrainians and drive them out of cities with missile terror this winter, while the only chance of ending the war was to force him to do so.
Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman also said that Putin was betting on the coming winter. “He still believes he is making rapid progress in Donbas. He was probably promised that he would conquer Donbas by the end of the year, and he probably believes it,” Fishman told Radio NV.
According to Skibitskyi of military intelligence, the extent to which Putin attempts to expand the offensive will also depend on whether he launches a new wave of Russian mobilisation, and how successful it is.
Its timing after the rigged September Duma elections has been speculated about throughout the summer, and reportedly no final decision has yet been taken.
In recent days, however, Russians have made record cash withdrawals, while long queues have reappeared at the border from Russia into Georgia, showing Russian fears about what is to come.
“He will continue terrorising Ukrainian civilians and waging an attritional war which, according to some voices, is turning into total war.”
It became total war once putler realised he would never take Kyiv. He could have stopped it there and then, but his hatred of Ukraine has cost millions of lives.
Fedorov’s decision to push for a wartime election tacitly aligns himself with scum like Ivan Muskovy and trumputler. This has damaged his presidential ambitions possibly irreversibly.
Maybe the Nazi, Musk, talked Federov into this?
“Putin is inching his way towards stealing all the Donbas.”
An uncomfortable truth.
Ukraine is once again in grave danger and once again the one country that could stop the carnage is aligning itself with child murderers and thieves.
Once a hub in the rear, Pavlohrad is now in Russia’s glide bomb crosshairs
August 20, 2026
https://kyivindependent.com/once-a-hub-in-the-rear-pavlohrad-is-now-in-russias-guided-bomb-crosshairs/
Ye, formerly Kanye West, is going to Russia. What is in it for Putin?
Kanye is going to play in St. Petersburg in October – in an operation seemingly tailor-made for Russian state propaganda.
TWO GRUMPY OLD MEN ON UKRAINE
AUG 20
BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN
Kanye West, also known as Ye, has had concerts and performances cancelled in several European countries the last couple of years following a series of antisemitic remarks, including praise for Adolf Hitler, even selling T-shirts bearing swastikas and releasing a song titled “Heil Hitler”.
West apologised in January for the remarks, which he attributed to an undiagnosed brain injury and an untreated bipolar disorder.
Now he is going to Russia.
One wonders how Kanye intends to justify playing two concerts that will, without a shadow of a doubt, benefit Vladimir Putin’s regime – both financially and, perhaps more importantly, as propaganda.
Russian and German media speculate that Kanye will have his strong personal wish fulfilled: to meet Vladimir Putin.
“Russian fans rushed to secure tickets after the shows were announced on Monday. Nearly all of the most expensive tickets, costing upwards of $1,850, were snapped up within hours, according to the concerts’ website,” the Guardian reports. By the evening, all tickets were sold lout for the two concerts, 10th and 11th October.
After having been shunned in Europe, Kanye has found a more receptive audience elsewhere. Recently, in Istanbul he drew 118,000 fans, while 70,000 came to watch him in Tbilisi. Earlier this month, he also performed a sold-out show in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Western media agree that Kanye’s performances in Russia will be the most prominent Western music act to perform in Russia since the invasion.
The venue: Gazprom arena
The stadium that Kanye will be playing on the 10th and 11th of October is named after Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy giant. With a capacity of 70,000, it is the home of the football team Zenit St Petersburg – which is also owned by Gazprom.
Gazprom, of course, has been absolutely central to Putin’s grabbing and holding on to power. And the West has imposed sanctions on the energy giant over its financing of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
According to a Reuters investigation, Gazprom has paid an estimated $210 billion in taxes into the Russian state system since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
So you have an American cultural superstar performing before tens of thousands of people in a stadium carrying the name of one of the central sponsors of Putin’s regime and the invasion of Ukraine, and oppression of Russians.
Not exactly a neutral venue.
And certainly not an apolitical concert.
Kanye has long dreamed of meeting Putin
In other words, this is not just “Famous US rapper goes to Russia.”
Russia has spent years arguing that Western sanctions and cultural isolation have failed – and a huge American celebrity turning up for two stadium shows is extremely useful to that narrative, a pretty powerful image for Putin’s regime.
It produces exactly the image Russia wants the world to see:
Look. The West has not isolated us. The Americans are still coming.
Several Russian politicians close to Vladimir Putin have already speculated aloud about the two meeting. According to Russian media, Kanye has been looking for such a meeting since 2024, when a possible concert in Russia was first discussed.
In fact, one of the concert organisers say that “meeting with our president, Vladimir Putin, is a longstanding dream of Mr West’s.”
The politician Nikolay Novichkov – has criticised Kanye for his remarks praising Hitler, but suggests that such past silliness can be balanced out of the rapper now expresses “moral support for Russia and the special military operation.”
Another parliamentarian, Yelena Drapeko, who serves on the parliament’s Culture Committee, praised Kanye’s decision to come to Russia, saying she was grateful to him for doing so “against the backdrop of general anti-Russian hysteria” in the West.
You couldn’t write the propaganda script much better.
Talk about headlines tailor-made for Russian state propaganda
Oh, and when the two meet, the regime has the media setup ready to blast it out.
Because the people behind Kanye’s Russian concerts are connected to a rather ‘remarkable’ part of Russia’s information ecosystem.
Say Agency, the official organiser of Kanye’s concerts, works in partnership on this project with another event company called Inticket.
And 40% of Inticket is owned by VK or VKontakte – which is essentially Russia’s VK is essentially Russia’s Facebook + Instagram + YouTube + messaging + digital-services conglomerate.
And it has very close ties to the Russian state, as it is owned by – surprise-surprise – Gazprom Bank.
While Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, all have become heavily restricted or blocked in Russia, VK has become one of the pillars of the domestic Russian internet ecosystem and works closely with the authorities.
As RFE/RL concluded its investigation of the company:
“VKontakte is no ordinary Russian IT company; it is state-controlled and pursues ideological and intelligence goals.”
So, who exactly has booked Ye/Kanye to come sing and dance for the Russian dictator? And who is going to make sure the pictures of him doing it are seen by the rest of the world?
Another nazi-lover is going to putlerstan in October : Kash Patel :-
https://kyivindependent.com/fbi-director-kash-patel-expected-to-visit-russia-politico-reports/
George Kwame Arko, from Stand With Ukraine :-
Bloated Ego, Bad Timing: Fedorov Calls for Elections While Russia Seizes Land
Mykhailo Fedorov is no longer defence minister, but he clearly still thinks he is the main character.
In a video address posted to YouTube on Tuesday, the ousted 35-year-old declared:
“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to renew its full democratic process even in the conditions of a long war.”
It is a grand line from a man with a bloated ego.
Yes, thousands demonstrated in Kyiv in support of Fedorov after his firing in July, just six months into the job. Yes, his reformist image and his public spat with army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi made him a folk hero for a few weeks.
But a street crowd of two thousand does not equal a mandate to rewrite the constitution in wartime.
Let us debunk the fantasy.
First, Ukrainian law explicitly prohibits elections under martial law.
Second, there is no “legal, safe and realistic mechanism” for what he proposes. Russia is intensifying its efforts to seize Ukrainian land.
Over 20% of the country is occupied, millions are displaced, soldiers are at the front, and air raid sirens interrupt every city daily. Who will attend rallies? Who will staff polling stations in Kharkiv or Sumy?
Third, Fedorov calls it a crisis of governance. The real crisis would be to pause the war effort to campaign for elections because one fired minister feels his reform was cut short.
This is a distraction, and it is dangerous. Ignore him.
#StandWithUkraine #NoWartimeElections
From euobserver :
Extracts only; it’s behind a paywall) :-
Ukrainian spy chief predicts Putin’s plans: missile terrorism and Donbas meat-grinding (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,638)
* Do not expect any negotiations: the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence predicts what comes next.
* Putin’s goal has not changed: he wants to seize Donbas at any cost.
Kyiv faces a critical shortage of missiles for Patriot systems and is unable to cope with Russian ballistic missiles. The situation is so bad that Ukraine’s air force stopped publishing statistics on whether its air defence succeeds or fails against such attacks.
There will only be more such attacks, with horrific consequences, in Ukrainian cities as winter approaches. Despite mounting domestic problems and Ukrainian pressure causing serious difficulties for Russia’s economy, Vladimir Putin is not preparing to pursue peace negotiations.
He will continue terrorising Ukrainian civilians and waging an attritional war which, according to some voices, is turning into total war. The Russian dictator also dreams of conquering the whole of Donbas this winter — something he has failed to do for more than 12 years.
Several analysts are convinced that this is how events will develop, as is one of Ukraine’s best-informed figures, Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, acting director of the HUR military intelligence agency.
So what does HUR’s second-in-command say?According to Skibitskyi, nothing indicates that Putin is ready to cease fire at the front and begin peace negotiations. He will continue the offensive in eastern Ukraine and intensify attacks on Ukrainian cities, seeking to destroy as much as possible — not only energy infrastructure, but also heating plants, waterworks and every possible logistics hub, warehouse or filling station.
In short, everything that makes life more difficult for people in Ukraine.
According to analyst Vins, Ukraine is already de facto in a total war with Russia. “This winter, however, will be its culminating stress test. Russia will again use the cold as a weapon of mass destruction, shifting its focus from purely military targets to breaking the resilience of civilian society,” he told Denník N.
Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the Achilles BPA battalion of the 92nd Air Assault Brigade, summed it up for Unian by saying that a prolonged war was a key condition for Putin to retain his own power; he would try to frighten Ukrainians and drive them out of cities with missile terror this winter, while the only chance of ending the war was to force him to do so.
Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman also said that Putin was betting on the coming winter. “He still believes he is making rapid progress in Donbas. He was probably promised that he would conquer Donbas by the end of the year, and he probably believes it,” Fishman told Radio NV.
According to Skibitskyi of military intelligence, the extent to which Putin attempts to expand the offensive will also depend on whether he launches a new wave of Russian mobilisation, and how successful it is.
Its timing after the rigged September Duma elections has been speculated about throughout the summer, and reportedly no final decision has yet been taken.
In recent days, however, Russians have made record cash withdrawals, while long queues have reappeared at the border from Russia into Georgia, showing Russian fears about what is to come.
https://euobserver.com/233005/ukrainian-spy-chief-predicts-putins-plans-missile-terrorism-and-donbas-meat-grinding-ukraine-battlefield-update-day-1638/
“He will continue terrorising Ukrainian civilians and waging an attritional war which, according to some voices, is turning into total war.”
It became total war once putler realised he would never take Kyiv. He could have stopped it there and then, but his hatred of Ukraine has cost millions of lives.
What’s the difference between this war and total war?
It’s a bit like dying and total dying.
Gotcha.