On this two-year anniversary of the start of my weekly tribute to the political prisoners being held hostage by the tyrannical regimes of Vladimir Putin and his allies, I find my righteous anger at those regimes tempered somewhat by feelings of shame and guilt . . . not from any overt acts of my own, but on behalf of my country.

For yesterday morning, I awoke — as we all did — to the unfathomable news that forces of the United States military had, without provocation and in violation of international law, invaded the sovereign nation of Venezuela, forcibly kidnapped its president and his wife, and transported them to the U.S. mainland for prosecution on drug charges.

Yesterday, my country — the nation founded on the tenets of peace and democracy — became the hostage-taker. A public announcement from Donald Trump declared that “we” — meaning he — would hereafter “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be effected.

Thus, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” officially became the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, raining war and devastation upon the Earth — and, I fear, upon the hostages held in those faraway prisons by Putin and his minions. For we have joined the league of those who trade in human misery, and place no value on the sanctity of life. Who, then, will be willing to negotiate with the U.S. government, when we can no longer be trusted to do so in good faith? What have we left to offer as a guarantee of our supposedly noble intentions?

*. *. *

But that is no reason for me, or any of us, to abandon those prisoners still praying for release. And so, with the addition of this week’s newest political hostages, here they are for the first time in 2026:

Victims of Greed:

The President, First Lady, and citizens of Venezuela

Europeans Under Threat:

The people of NATO and EU member states

Prisoners of War:

The 19,500 Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
The People of Ukraine

Immigrant Detainees in Russia:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Endangered Exiles:

Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
— Farid Mehralizada
— Ulvi Hasanli
— Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
— Mahammad Kekalov
— Hafiz Babali
— Nargiz Absalamova
— Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Andrei Chapiuk
Uladzimir Labkovich
Andrzej Poczobut
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Georgia:

Mzia Amaglobeli

In China:

Chenyue Mao (American)

In Russia:

The “Crimea 8”:
— Oleg Antipov
— Artyom Azatyan
— Georgy Azatyan
— Aleksandr Bylin
— Roman Solomko
— Artur Terchanyan
— Dmitry Tyazhelykh
— Vladimir Zloba

James Scott Rhys Anderson (British)
David Barnes (American)
Gordon Black (American)
Hayden Davies (British)
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman (American)
Stephen James Hubbard (American)
Sergey Karelin
Timur Kishukov
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake (American)
Aleksei Liptser
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika Novak
Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Sofiane Sehili (French)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector (American)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland (American)

Please do not lose hope. The one constant in life is change . . . and the next surprise may turn out to be a better one.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
1/4/26