The main difference is probably that Azov now has around 100,000 NATO-funded troops. Its 'White Fuhrer' Andriy Biletsky is a brigadier general in charge of managing the most important section of the frontline. Azov's 1st and 3rd corps are regularly described as the best units in the army. Biletsky is in the top-3 candidates for president. None of this exists anywhere else on earth. Governments glorifying genocidal figures happens in most places.

Austria, Cyprus, Indonesia, Israel, Moldova, Spain, Monaco, Serbia. Bodies keep on turning up on distant shores. Explosions, kidnappings, detached heads. And the same pattern shrouding each victim: involvement in Ukrainian scam call centres, closeness to Zelensky’s inner circle, reports that said victim was preparing to talk with European law enforcement. Even more piquantly, some of the victims allege that Ukraine’s main western-funded journalists have been aiding the killers. All rather ironic, given that is Russia’s passion for assassinations in the EU that is routinely decried as ‘state terrorism’ and used as justification for further economic sanctions. Ukraine, meanwhile, is quite free to kill, kidnap, or blow up whoever it likes across Europe. Perhaps this is linked to the repeated allegations by victims that EU-funded Ukrainian journalists assisted the covert assassins in their missions. In short, Ukraine is shaping up to join the ranks of those states routinely assassinating political opponents abroad. Given their anti-Russian animus, no doubt they’d prefer to be compared to Israel or Rwanda. Except that those killed aren’t always quite opponents, but allies who know too much and might say too much to the beloved European partners. More specifically, they know too much about the scam call centre industry patronized by Zelensky’s law enforcement structures and largely profiting off European victims. One of the first cases of Ukraine’s international operations took place in 2021. Zelensky wanted the errant judge Mykola Chaus back in the country, probably so that he could give testimony against ex-president Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky’s great rival. So the president got Kyrylo Budanov, the new head of the GUR (Main Intelligence Directorate) to send a team to Moldova, where Chaus had been hiding from corruption allegations in Ukraine the past few years. The GUR kidnapped Chaus, shoving him into a Ukrainian embassy car and driving him across the border. His abduction was captured on camera. They made little effort at concealing the operation. Even the highly pro-western Moldovan government of Maia-Sandu publicly protested against the hutzpah demonstrated by Ukrainian intelligence agencies. Since then, the GUR has become much more ambitious on the international stage. Early in 2026, the son of a scam call centre oligarch was tortured and decapitated in Bali, with a GUR agent arrested in Kiev in mid-2026 for the crime. In late June 2026, exiled Ukrainian businessman Vadym Yermolaev was targeted by an explosion in Monaco in late June. He escaped without life-threatening injuries, but his mistress’s legs were torn off. His younger son also suffered. Just a few months earlier, Yermolaev’s older son had been arrested by INTERPOL for organizing a massive scam call centre network with revenue of over 100 million euros. He was promptly released by Estonian law enforcement as part of a plea bargain. He’d clearly cooperated. In the underworld, rats can face collective punishment. A few days later after the attack on Yermolaev, the Monaco bomber fled INTERPOL back to her native Ukraine. There, she was promptly assassinated by two men — one a GUR officer, the other from the SBU, Ukraine’s other big intelligence agency. Anastasia Berezovskaya, the unfortunate bomber📷 In court, the killers said that the deceased had also been involved in operations against the dissident Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shariy in Spain — he has complained of attempts on his life by the GUR/SBU for years. He is also sanctioned by the Ukrainian government and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for ‘treason’, just as Yermolaev is sanctioned for supposed business dealings with Russia. Similar death squads were likely involved in the 2025 assassination of Ukrainian deep political operator Andrey Portnov. Like many of today’s victims, Portnov was an important figure in the Zelensky elite who ended up attracting too much heat. He was particularly hated by western-funded journalist and anti-corruption networks. On October 8, 2026, we saw a final story that quite neatly ties all today’s threads together. Zelensky’s disgraced General Prosecutor, having fled to Austria in September after allegations of profiting off scam call centres, was targeted by a group of GUR officers in Vienna. Austrian law enforcement arrested two journalists from Ukraine’s western-funded liberal nationalist press and two GUR officers. And on October 28, the former Prosecutor General declared that the GUR had been trying to kidnap him. He also claimed that the same GUR general behind the operation was also responsible for the murder of a Cypriot organized crime figure in 2025. This general is Viktor Torkotyuk, alias ‘Titan’, a fascinating figure whose involvement in international drug smuggling I’ve covered several times before. A whole web of intrigues. We’ll also get into how this relates to an assassination attempt in Tel Aviv and a mysterious meeting in Vienna between Torkotyuk and representatives of the Serbian mob.

Trump soon backed down after his attempt to pressure Kiev through Starlink restrictions. Now the US has returned full access to its crucial communications and intelligence. Zelensky has bet on allying with the CIA, Congress, and the ghost of Lindsey Graham against Trump. This seems to be working well for him. Meanwhile, a number of prominent voices in Ukraine have declared over the past week that the country must make no compromises and fight until the destruction of Russia, 'just like Israel'. A natural comparison for these adepts of the cult of Lindsey Graham. Full article in reply.

Beatings and mass casualties in the 225th assault regiment. Soldier Oleg Seryk has been sharing these photos and videos the past 5 days on Instagram. He says that the commanders of the 225th forbid the 'hundreds of bodies' lying in the forests of Huliapole from being retrieved. They are registered as missing in action, meaning that relatives receive no compensation payments for killed soldiers.

The musical initiations for soldiers in the 425th assault regiment. This unit is famous for mass battlefield casualties in suicide missions and systematic beatings, torture, and killings of their own troops. The troops are largely forcibly mobilized old men and drug addicts, often mobilized directly in their methadone replacement clinics. In the second video, you can see a 'happily dancing' old man start coughing out of exhaustion. There have been dozens of deaths from tuberculosis in this unit this year.

There has been much talk over the past two months of grand reforms in Ukraine’s army. These reforms have supposedly put an end to the many scandalous cases of beatings, torture, killings, blocking detachments, and mass casualties revealed in the summer. In reality, the usual practices continue. How else to motivate forcibly mobilized drug addicts and grandfathers to go die at the front? So the beatings continue, in the pits, the trenches, and tied to snowy trees. It’s just that the media has stopped covering it, because the new commander-in-chief of the army, Mikhailo Drapaty, is much-liked by the western-funded press. Nevertheless, some soldiers still post photos and videos of the abuses to Instagram. Military telegram channels continue to complain about incompetent fighting practices leading to massive losses. The bodies are abandoned, commanders forbidding their retrieval — registered as ‘missing in action’, there is no need to pay relatives. Meanwhile, we get videos of newly-mobilized troops forced to smile and dance for the camera. Small wonder there is little information. It can be dangerous bringing attention to certain things. In mid-October, a female soldier mysteriously died at the front right after sharing the sexual abuse she’d been subject to in her unit. Though she voluntarily signed up to the army as a drone operator, she was instead sent to the infantry. Many of her comrades believe that her death was a case of ‘zeroing’ — a punishment whereby one is sent on a mission with no chance of survival. Besides all this, we’ll also look at Azov’s PR offensive in defense of these infamous units. This involves a rather bizarre mini-film Azov recently released portraying Russia’s soldiers as the kind hobbits of Lord of the Rings, prompting outrage from many Ukrainian patriots. Full article in reply

A mobilization update. The government plans to intensify recruitment efforts. Manpower will probably be more necessary than ever due to the restriction of US military aid, crucial for Ukrainian drone airpower. More killings at the Territorial Recruitment Centres (TRC). A half-blind old man mobilized, released due to his infirmities at a distant bridge without a phone, and now missing for 8 days. A psychologist who tried to flee Ukraine by swimming to Moldova rammed and beaten with oars by Ukrainian border guards. The increasing cases of mobilized men opening fire on the TRC and police, wounding many at one go. Men mobilized naked. A grandmother thrown to the ground while trying to protect men from being abducted, leaving her with a broken hip. A pregnant woman who lost consciousness while trying to save her husband. A gypsy community who took on the TRC that abducted their ‘baron’. A shirtless man promising to stab every policeman to death before they mobilize him. Full article in reply