Having a wonderful time reminiscing about all my past travel (and other) adventures. Hope you’ll share them with me in my blog, “All Roads Led to Russia.”
I’m not talking about the ones in the windshields of airplanes carrying U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth . . . although those are certainly concerning enough.
In this case, the cracks already have begun to show in Donald Trump’s purportedly rock-solid peace treaty between Israel and Gaza, which he (perhaps prematurely) has predicted will bring a new “golden age” to the long-embattled Middle East.
Egypt Summit – October 13, 2025
Speaking before Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) on Monday, he stated clearly that, having supposedly solved one problem, his next priority is the more elusive one of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
But is it safe yet to turn his attention away from the Israel-Gaza conflict, leaving it to others to conclude the many remaining issues? Has he failed to notice the internal fighting already erupting in Gaza between armed clans and Hamas security forces, in which 27 people were killed on Sunday alone?
He clearly is aware of Hamas’ delay in returning the bodies of the remaining deceased Israeli hostages, which they say is due to the difficulty in retrieving them without special equipment . . . and of the fact that, of the four bodies initially returned, one has been confirmed as not being a known Israeli hostage.
Three of the Returned Deceased Israelis
Israel has now charged Hamas with violating the peace agreement, and stated that it will “not compromise” on the issue of hostage returns, saying that “the mission is not complete.” [Ben Hatton and Sean Seddon, BBC, October 15, 2025.]
And Trump himself has responded to the delay by saying that he will consider approving Israel’s resumption of military action in Gaza if Hamas refuses to uphold its end of the deal, telling CNN that Israeli forces could return to Gaza “as soon as I say the word. I had to hold them [the Netanyahu administration and IDF] back. I had it out with Bibi [Netanyahu].” [ BBC, October 15, 2025.]
Trump and Netanyahu – October 13, 2025
Trump added: “What’s going on with Hamas — that’ll be straightened out quickly.” [Id.]
Right. The way he “straightened out” the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of his inauguration.
In 1966, Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner and Theodore Bikel starred in one of the best (in my opinion) comedy films ever made: “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.”
In it, a Soviet submarine runs aground and is stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a New England island. The commander (Bikel) orders his second-in-command (Arkin) to get the sub moving again without creating an international incident, and Arkin decides to take a few of his men ashore to seek help — disguised as Americans in clothes they “borrow” from a local shop. None of them speaks more than a few words of English, and the result, as you can imagine, is nothing short of hilarious . . . in good, clean, 1960s, poking-fun-at-the-Cold-War style.
Alan Arkin (R) and his pseudo-Americans: ”The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming”
Fast-forward 59 years. In a classic case of real life imitating art, a diesel-powered submarine — the Novorossiysk from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet — surfaced off the coast of France last week. It had been shadowed for three days, from October 7-9, by a UK warship and helicopter as it was passing through the Strait of Gibraltar and the English Channel, where it was required by regulations to surface. It was on its return voyage from deployment in the Mediterranean, where it had reportedly experienced a fuel leak, raising concerns of a possible underwater explosion.
After passing through the Channel, the vessel was escorted by the Dutch Navy. On October 11th, Dutch authorities reported the Novorossiysk as being under tow in the North Sea due to a malfunction — in response to which the Black Sea Fleet’s press service issued this typically Russian denial:
“Information disseminated by a number of media outlets about an alleged malfunction and, as a result, the emergency surfacing of the diesel-electric submarine Novorossiysk off the coast of France does not correspond to reality. In accordance with international navigation regulations, submarines are to navigate the English Channel only while on the surface.” [Chris Graham, BBC, October 13, 2025.]
Novorossiysk
But NATO chief Mark Rutte saw the comic value in Moscow’s insistence on denying reality — a habit that hasn’t changed over the last six decades — when he described the “broken” vessel as “limping home,” while referencing another submarine-based work of fiction:
“What a change from the 1984 Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October. Today, it seems more like the hunt for the nearest mechanic.” [Id.]
Good one, Mr. Rutte.
Mark Rutte
It occurs to me that if governments would only loosen up a bit and learn to laugh at their own fallibility when little things occasionally — and inevitably — do go wrong, perhaps they wouldn’t become the brunt of jokes later.
But then, we would have missed out on a couple of very good movies.
Aboard Air Force One yesterday, reporters asked Trump whether he thought his role in negotiating the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Gaza would be his ticket to heaven. Flushed from his great success, he was in a jovial mood and had this to say:
“I don’t think there’s anything gonna get me in heaven. Okay? I think I’m not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly in Air Force One. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make heaven.” [CNN, October 13, 2025.]
Credit: Screen Shots from CNN Video
Grammatical ineptness aside, I couldn’t agree with him more — and those are words I never expected to hear myself utter. But I have to give credit where it’s due.
The man just gave me the best laugh I’ve had in a long, long while.
Have you ever wondered how the current U.S. administration has managed to amass in one place so many inherently cruel, vindictive, unfeeling individuals willing to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of people they’ve never met and who have done nothing to deserve their brutal treatment?
I’m talking about people like J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and their multitude of compatriots who, without a second thought, round up people in the most brutal manner, tear them away from their families, herd them into hellhole prisons, and deport them . . .
who pepper spray, physically attack, handcuff and arrest peaceful demonstrators . . .
who destroy the careers of those who may have insulted them recently or a decade ago . . .
who deprive children and the elderly of medical care, food, and decent housing by making those basic necessities of life unavailable or unaffordable . . .
and who put people out of work just because they can.
Where did all of these apostles of Dracula suddenly spring from? Were they born that way, or are they the recent, mind-altered creations of some real-life monster?
Perhaps another such madman as this:
Der Fuhrer
I’ve been giving this a good deal of thought lately. And yesterday I read an article posted by a blog buddy of mine concerning his country’s misguided attempts at understanding and “treating” autism. In it, he mentions studies done in the 1960s on the efficacy of using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) — or so-called conversion therapy — in attempting to suppress autistic traits, rather than offering support to the individuals who live with autism and are uniquely qualified to understand and describe their experiences.
ABA — which has also been used to attempt to “convert” LGBTQ people in the hopes that they will become “normal” — can include brutal treatments, including electroshock therapy, and has frequently caused substantial additional harm to its victims.
But it also has had adverse effects on the “therapists” who perform the “treatments”; and questions have arisen as to whether those individuals themselves even recognize the harm that is being done to them. For example, my friend writes:
“In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in which ordinary people were instructed to administer electric shocks to a stranger. The shocks were fake, the screams acted — but the participants didn’t know that. Many showed distress. Some hesitated. But 65% delivered the maximum voltage when prompted by an authority figure in a lab coat.
“A decade later, Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment revealed how quickly role and power can distort empathy. Volunteers assigned as ‘guards’ began to humiliate and abuse ‘prisoners’ within days. The experiment was halted early — not because the guards recognised the harm, but because the researchers did.
“These studies are unsettling not because they reveal monsters, but because they reveal us. The capacity to harm is not confined to the cruel. It lives in the compliant, the well-intentioned, the professionally trained. It thrives in systems that reward obedience and punish dissent.
“In places like Lake Alice, obedience became a shield. Staff followed orders. Protocols were upheld. Children were silenced. The harm was not hidden — it was routinised.”
Electroconvulsive Therapy
*. *. *
We know about the horrors discovered in Hitler’s concentration camps after they were liberated by the Allies. And we know of the more recent stories told by political prisoners who have survived Vladimir Putin’s penal colonies. The officers, doctors, technicians — and even fellow inmates — who carry out such atrocities will tell you that they are merely “following orders.”
Adolph Eichmann: “Just following orders”
But how do they live with themselves? Could there be so many without consciences, or an iota of empathy?
Those are extreme cases, of course. But applying the same principles of “routinizing” or “normalizing” aberrant (and abhorrent) behavior, could the same not also be said for some of today’s top U.S. officials as they slash and burn their way through America’s democratic principles, doing irreparable harm to millions of innocent people?
And if so, who do you suppose is masterminding and controlling their conversion therapy?
It’s an indescribable joy to be able to share in good news . . . especially when it involves the release of prisoners being unjustly held as hostages to a political cause not of their making.
And today, of course, we celebrate the return of the 20 surviving Israelis taken hostage two years ago in the raid by Hamas forces on Israel, and of the nearly 2,000 Palestinians held prisoner in retribution since that day.
Without belaboring the political issues, I would simply like to offer my congratulations to all of the returnees and their families, and my hopes for even greater progress toward a lasting peace in the region.
There are any number of possible answers to that question, of course. And I’m guessing that one of them might be:
When the leaders of the world’s two greatest nuclear powers play a game of political chicken, and they’re both too pigheaded to swerve.
Which, according to recent comments from each of them, could happen at any moment.
Earlier in the week, Donald Trump had said that before agreeing to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, he would want to know how they planned to use them, because he did not want to escalate the war between Russia and Ukraine. He added, however, that he had already “sort of made a decision.” [Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, October 12, 2025.]
The Kremlin’s response came yesterday from spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said on Russian state television:
“The topic of Tomahawks is of extreme concern. Now is really a very dramatic moment in terms of the fact that tensions are escalating from all sides.” [Id.]
Peskov added that if Tomahawks were launched at Russia, Moscow would have to consider the fact that some versions of the missile are capable of carrying nuclear warheads:
“Just imagine: a long-range missile is launched and is flying and we know that it could be nuclear. What should the Russian Federation think? Just how should Russia react? Military experts overseas should understand this.” [Id.]
Putin — who either believes he is still living in the days of the Soviet Union, or simply wishes he were — continues to blame the West for what he calls the humiliation of Russia after the 1991 breakup of the USSR, and for allegedly encroaching on Moscow’s claimed sphere of influence by accepting a number of the former Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc satellite countries into NATO membership.
He warned on Sunday that delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine would represent a “completely new stage of escalation,” but claimed they would not pose a major threat to his country:
“Can Tomahawks harm us? They can. But we will shoot them down and improve our air defense system.” [RFE/RL, October 13, 2025.]
(My thought: Wouldn’t shooting them down have the same disastrous consequences as allowing them to detonate on their own? But never mind . . . )
Taking into account the time difference between Moscow and Washington, it is likely that Trump had heard Peskov’s and Putin’s comments before boarding Air Force One for his flight to the Gaza peace conference on Sunday. Yet, when asked about the possibility of providing Tomahawks to Ukraine, he replied to reporters:
“[Ukraine] would like to have Tomahawks. That’s a step up. Yeah, I might tell him [Putin] if the war is not settled, we may very well do it. We may not, but we may do it…. Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.” [Id.]
This could, of course, be nothing more than a testosterone-fueled display of machismo consistent with the usual behavior of a pair of vicious, autocratic narcissists. Or not.
The point is, they’re not just duking it out on the playground. And all we can do is go to sleep each night hoping that neither of them has a death wish.
It’s tiny; it’s one of the poorest countries in Europe; and I’d be willing to bet that most people outside of Europe have no idea of its exact location or the name of its capital (Chisinau).
But the small nation of Moldova — formerly the Soviet republic of Moldavia — is of strategic importance to Russia because of its situation between southwestern Ukraine and Romania, making it the perfect buffer zone, and stepping stone, between east and west should Vladimir Putin succeed in his quest to take possession of Ukraine.
It should therefore not be at all surprising to learn that Russia has been teaching Moldovan citizens to foment unrest in advance of their recent parliamentary elections in order to swing the votes in favor of Russia-friendly candidates. What is surprising is that they used a holiday resort in Serbia as a training camp.
Serbia, while retaining its traditional close ties to Moscow, has also been trying to build economic relations with the West. This revelation has thus proven inconvenient — even embarrassing — to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has said the information about the training camp was received, not from Serbia’s own security services, but from private sources — indicating a likely cover-up. In an interview on October 5th, Vucic said:
“If there’s one thing we do well, it’s processing of foreign citizens. It was impossible for us not to notice. We did not notice because someone wanted us not to notice.” [Iva Martinovic, et al., RFE/RL, October 12, 2025.]
Gee . . . you think?
Site of the Alleged Russian Training Camp
Serbian authorities have since made two arrests, unofficially identified by local media as Serbian citizens Lazar Popovic and Savo Stevanovic. Both men were formerly advisers to Nenad Popovic, a minister without portfolio who has been sanctioned by the U.S. for his ties to Russia. [Id.]
Locals in the nearby village have said they noticed Russian-speaking customers in the area. And RFE/RL has discovered a fitness app registered to one Sergei Andreenkov that shows him taking his regular morning run along a route that began within the resort complex. Andreenkov is an activist for Putin’s United Russia party, and has received a Russian Defense Ministry award for “strengthening the defense of the Russian Federation.” [Id.]
Andreenkov’s Running App Route (top) and the Camp Area
And Moldovan police have released a video of a suspect who has admitted traveling to Serbia, and who said:
“They taught us to use walkie-talkies, showed us recordings of some Russian rallies, and told us what we should and should not do.” [Id.]
*. *. *
The Kremlin, of course, has denied any involvement in the alleged training camp. But then, Moscow always denies everything.
The question is — not whether anyone believes them any longer — but how long before we stop thinking it can’t happen here . . . and realize that it already has.
While Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and other EU nations bordering or close to Russian or Belarusian territory have been ramping up their defenses in the wake of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into EU airspace, Denmark has not been idle.
Danish Arctic Defense
The Danish government has just announced an additional $4.2 billion of defense spending to increase security in the Arctic and North Atlantic regions — including its autonomous territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. It will also be spending $4.5 billion on the purchase of 16 more F-35 fighter jets from the United States. According to Denmark’s Defense Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen:
“With this … agreement we significantly strengthen the capabilities of the Danish Armed Forces in the region.” [Stuart Lau and Danny Aeberhard, BBC, October 10, 2025.]
F-35A Lightning II
And Danish Chief of Defense Michael Hyldgaard issued a statement, saying, without naming a specific adversary:
“The task of the Armed Forces is to ensure security throughout the Kingdom — and, if necessary, to defend Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark within the framework of Nato [sic] in all domains.” [Id.]
Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands are autonomous territories of the Kingdom of Denmark, and as such were included in Denmark’s negotiations for the new defense package. In addition to the purchase of new Arctic ships, maritime patrol planes, drones and early warning radar, a new Arctic command headquarters will be set up in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, along with a new military unit under Joint Arctic Command. There will also be funding for an undersea cable connecting Greenland and Denmark. [Id.]
But the government and the people of Denmark and Greenland are currently faced with another critical issue besides the obvious concerns about a possible Russian incursion. Because of its strategic position between the North American continent and Europe (including Russia’s Arctic regions), Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants to take possession of Greenland as a territory of the United States . . . despite the Greenlanders’ having made it quite clear that they want no part of a change of allegiance.
Trump has said the island is crucial to U.S. efforts to track Chinese and Russian ships, which he describes as being “all over the place.” He pleads that Greenland is “critical” for America’s national and economic security. [Id.]
And no doubt it has not escaped Trump’s notice that the large island (836,330 square miles) is rich in natural resources, including rare earth minerals, uranium and iron.
Not surprisingly, Greenland’s prime minister has said that the territory is not for sale, and that “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland.” [Id.]
But Donald Trump never gives up when he wants something badly enough, because he honestly believes that no one has the right to say “no” to him . . . about anything. And he never signs off on a deal that isn’t in some way beneficial to him.
I wonder whether any of his sycophantic advisors has had the cojones to ask him what he would say if, for example, Vladimir Putin were suddenly to propose taking back Alaska because of its strategic position abutting Russia’s east coast . . . not to mention its oil, minerals, timber, wildlife . . .
As another bitter winter approaches, and while the attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure continue and more people die or are wounded and displaced, the political prisoners being held hostage by Vladimir Putin’s forces in Russia and elsewhere sit and wait for hopeful news.
But not to be overlooked this week are the thousands of prisoners on both sides of another conflict — the Israel-Gaza war — who are about to be returned home on Monday, if all goes according to plan. And that will indeed be cause for celebration. Regardless of nationality, no prisoner of war or political hostage must be left behind or forgotten.
Rally In Tel Aviv to Free the Hostages and End the War
While we rejoice for those survivors and their families, though, let us not forget the victims of Putin’s and his allies’ continuing campaign of terror against those who dare to speak out against their totalitarian regimes, who remain in prisons and penal colonies in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Central Asia, and China.
For the 92nd straight week, then, they are (among thousands of others):
Immigrant Detainees in Russia:
Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
Prisoners of War:
The 19,500 Kidnapped Ukrainian Children The People of Ukraine
Endangered Exiles:
Mikita Losik Yulia Navalnaya Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents
Ales Bialiatski Andrei Chapiuk Marya Kalesnikava Uladzimir Labkovich Marfa Rabkova Valiantsin Stafanovic Yuras Zyankovich
In China:
Chenyue Mao (American)
In Russia:
David Barnes (American) Gordon Black (American) 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 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)
The fight continues on their behalf — hopefully without letup — until they are all safely home.
It occurs to me that some of my regular readers may be wondering why I’ve never chosen to comment on the horrific Israel-Gaza situation, or on Donald Trump’s claimed success in negotiating a first-step, partial ceasefire and prisoner exchange. In fact, the answer is simple:
Like Vladimir and Estragon — Samuel Beckett’s protagonists in his immortal play, “Waiting for Godot: A tragicomedy in two acts” — I am waiting for a final result that may, or may not, ever occur.
“Waiting for Godot”
While inexplicably anticipating the arrival of a mysterious person named Godot, the two obviously homeless men, with nothing better to do, engage in an endless stream of musings and dialogues that lead the reader — willingly or not — to contemplate the ultimate truth: the meaning of life itself.
In the context of our modern world, what I am waiting for — and can only hope to live long enough to learn — is the truth behind Donald Trump’s own “tragicomedy in two acts.”
In his second stab at running the country and the world, he now claims to have set the entire Middle East on the path to a lasting peace — an area of the world that has seen nothing but conflict since the times of the ancient Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. But, without an iota of knowledge of the complex history of the region, he believes he has magically been able to convince the current political and religious leaders of the various countries to set aside centuries of deep-seated animus . . . just because he says they should.
Schmoozing the Adversary
But how can we know what promises he has made in order to gain their agreement to his “deals”?
Bullying the Ally
While I — and most of the world — would love nothing better than to see that dream become a reality, I am a realist. And looking at Trump’s recent record of other claimed successes, I cannot bring myself to celebrate this one based only on a tenuous agreement to a temporary solution.
Think about it. How many times has Trump claimed that he has succeeded in convincing Vladimir Putin to sit down with Volodymyr Zelensky in order to bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine? But has it happened yet?
And those seven other “wars” he claims to have ended . . . How many of them were actual wars? And how many of his alleged solutions have lasted?
While he promises to be solving all of the world’s problems, what about the conflicts he has been creating between the United States and its traditional allies, or the ones he has exacerbated with China, North Korea, and now even Venezuela?
Going On the Offensive
How can we put our faith in the word of one who has set his own country on a course of self-destruction, single-handedly annihilating 250 years of democratic rule and economic success by dismantling the essential agencies of the government itself, and instituting martial law in cities that needed no “help” from his storm troopers?
The Streets of Los Angeles, California
*. *. *
So you see, I am simply unable to shout “Hoorah!” as yet. Any exchange of prisoners and hostages is, of course, an event to celebrate; and for that success, honor is certainly due. But beyond that, I must join Vladimir and Estragon by their tree, and await the arrival of my own elusive Godot.
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