Kirill Dmitriev is the CEO of the $10 billion sovereign wealth fund known as the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). He also acts as Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, and in that latter capacity, he recently said:

“I believe Russia and the US and Ukraine are actually quite close to a diplomatic solution.” [RFE/RL, October 25, 2025.]

However, he also called the most recent sanctions against Russia’s two largest energy companies “pointless.” And to prove his point, this is what occurred overnight yesterday in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv:

In an air attack on two high-rise residential apartment buildings, three people were killed and at least 32 others — including several children — were severely injured.

And in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, a kindergarten — a kindergarten! — was struck by a Russian-launched Shahed drone, trapping 48 little children in its shelter. This was part of the aftermath of that attack:

Despite Vladimir Putin’s transparently false protestations that his forces do not target civilian infrastructure, and notwithstanding Kirill Dmitriev’s baseless assurances that a diplomatic resolution to Putin’s war of attrition against Ukraine is in the offing, the slaughter continues unabated.

But in every war and after every natural disaster, against all the odds, ordinary people react instinctively to perform deeds of courage, kindness and selflessness. And from the rubble, heroes are born.

Yesterday’s kindergarten attack brought out more than the trained first responders; average citizens also came rushing to the scene to rescue the four dozen little ones trapped in the building’s shelter.

And this one photo of a man carrying a child away from the horror she had just survived — wrapped in his coat to protect her from the surrounding smoke and debris — has become the symbol of the strength, bravery, fortitude, and unflagging humanity the Ukrainian people have exhibited through nearly four years of Putin’s onslaught.

With such horrifying, indisputable photographic evidence, I cannot imagine that anyone — or, at least, anyone with a modicum of intelligence and empathy — might still question who is the victim and who is the villain in this war.

Yet, some do. And that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/27/25