Was he trolling for beautiful young Russian girls? Looking for financial opportunities in the vast Russian market? Might he have been a dupe for some duplicitous scheme of Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services?

Or is there some other, equally weird explanation for the fact that Russia was mentioned at least 5,876 times, and Putin’s name some 1,055 times, in the latest Epstein file dump from the U.S. Department of Justice?

One person who wants answers to those questions is Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Announcing on Tuesday that his country will launch an investigation into possible links between Epstein and Russian intelligence, and specifically with regard to any impact the scandal may have on Poland, Tusk said:

“More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services. I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.” [Reuters, February 3, 2026.]

There was no immediate reply from the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow or the Russian Embassy in Warsaw to a written request for comment. But in December, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had already commented on the Epstein files, which she described as indicative of the hypocrisy of Western elites:

“Here, as I understood, were all the Western ‘lecturers on life’ who looked down on Russia and who lectured us about ‘democracy and human rights’ in interesting poses with equally interesting leisure partners.” [Id.]

*. *. *

Donald Tusk is not the only European leader to express concern about possible Russian involvement with Epstein. French and British intelligence agencies are likewise trying to establish whether this might have been what one called “the world’s largest honeytrap operation”: how many people Epstein may have dragged into his Tenth Circle of Hell, for whose benefit (his own, or Russia’s), for what purpose, and how the material may have been used or intended to be used. [Ben Macintyre, The Times, February 6, 2026.]

According to The Times’ Ben MacIntyre, the entire operation bears the unmistakable “fingerprints” of Russian kompromat — the collection and/or invention of compromising material for the explicit purposes of blackmail, coercion, political leverage . . . and sometimes the total destruction of the targeted individual’s personal and professional life. As Macintyre accurately points out, “kompromat need not be genuine to be effective.” [Id.]

Epstein is said to have visited Russia multiple times, and tried to arrange a meeting with Putin — though it is unclear whether he succeeded. He arranged Russian visas for others, and claimed to have links to members of the Russian elite, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin. [Id.]

Mysteriously, two days before his suicide, Epstein left the bulk of his fortune to a 36-year-old Belarusian dentist. And it has now been learned that, following his sex trafficking conviction, he hired publicist Maria Drokova (now known as Masha Bucher) — a former press secretary of the Kremlin youth group known as Nashi (“Ours”) — to help restore his public image. With Epstein’s help, Bucher went on to become a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and in turn was able to introduce Epstein to at least nine startups-up founders. [Id.]

There is more — much more. But, in addition to the horrific physical and psychological suffering of the legion of Epstein’s victims, and the damage to the reputations of prominent people who may, or may not, be guilty of the actions set out in the millions of pages thus far produced, we now have to consider the possibility that some or all of it could be the product of Russian kompromat.

And that opens the door to the likelihood that at least a portion of it has been manufactured or exaggerated.

As The Times’ Macintyre points out:

“[In Stalin’s time] some of the evidence was fabricated: planted drugs, doctored images, forged financial records. But Stalin’s blackmailers found that by far the most effective kompromat was genuine, photographic, sexual in nature and collected long before it might be needed. That is precisely what Epstein appears to have done.” [Id.]

There is no proof as yet that Epstein was a willing Russian agent. But we see just how easily government and business leaders can become victims of the most insidious conspiracies, making it that much more difficult to separate fact from fiction.

And, as Macintyre said:

“No one will be enjoying those revelations more than Putin, the Kremlin’s king of kompromat. Checkmate.” [Id.]

I find it particularly interesting to note that the leaders of such countries as Poland, France and the U.K. are willing — indeed, anxious — to unearth the truth . . . while the man in the Oval Office spends 25 hours a day trying to bury it.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/7/26

Assassinations are nothing new in Russia. And since the start of Russia’s war of attrition against Ukraine, the numbers have increased, with Ukraine taking responsibility for some, but not all, of them.

In just over a year since December of 2024, three Lieutenant Generals have been targeted and killed in or around Moscow alone:

> December 2024: Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of the military’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, by a car bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building;

> April 2025: Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff, by an explosive device placed in his parked car; and

> December 2025: Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, also by a car bomb.

And today the target of a shooting outside of a high-rise apartment building northwest of Moscow’s city center was Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU.

At last report, Alekseyev was alive, fighting for his life in a Moscow hospital, after being shot several times by an unknown assailant who fled the scene.

The attack occurred while Alekseyev’s boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, was out of the country, heading the Russian delegation to the peace negotiations taking place in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in televised comments, accused Ukraine of a “terrorist act [designed to] disrupt the negotiation process.” Ukrainian officials have not yet commented.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reported that the shooting is being investigated, saying:

“The special services are doing their job. We wish the general a speedy recovery. We hope that will be the case.” [CBS News, February 6, 2026.]

And Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, added:

“Investigative actions and operational search measures are being carried out to identify the person or persons involved in committing the aforementioned crime.” [Id.]

*. *. *

But was this indeed a targeted assassination by Ukrainian forces in retaliation for four years of bombardment by Russia? Perhaps . . . though they have not claimed credit for it. And a shooting by a lone assailant seems out of line with their usual, more sophisticated, covert methods.

So, if not Ukraine, then who might have been responsible? Let’s look at Alekseyev’s background.

As First Deputy Chief of the GRU since 2011, he has been under Western sanctions because of alleged cyberattacks, and for his role in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the U.K. in 2018. While Skripal and his daughter survived, an innocent bystander died as a result of accidental exposure to the deadly Novichok agent. [Id.]

Alekseyev led Russia’s intelligence operations in Syria on behalf of former leader Bashar al-Assad.

And, when the head of the paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, attempted a mutiny against the Kremlin in 2023, it was Alekseyev who was assigned to head the negotiation that ultimately put down the revolt. It should be noted that, just months after the event, Prigozhin and several of his top lieutenants were killed in a mysterious mid-air plane explosion.

So it can be assumed that Vladimir Alekseyev has made more than one enemy over the course of his career — not the least of whom might well be someone within the Putin administration itself. At this point, unless Ukrainian officials do claim responsibility, it’s probably best not to rush to judgment . . . no matter what Sergei Lavrov says.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/6/26

Surprisingly, this has nothing to do with politics . . . although I could certainly go off on that subject as well. But not today.

Rather, this is about information . Like the good citizens of Russia, I have recently found myself with access to fewer and fewer reliable news sources. Oh, they’re out there, all right; I just can’t get to them.

Several years ago, I moved from the Washington, D.C. area, where everything was at my fingertips, to the quiet countryside in the southeastern U.S. It’s peaceful and relaxing here; but it’s also a bit of a schlep to many of the conveniences I had always taken for granted. There’s always a trade-off in life.

And our area does not receive cable TV. There is satellite service, but quite frankly, it sucks: a few drops of rain, or a good breeze, and it’s “bye-bye, TV reception.“ So I gave that up, and went with something called Fire TV, which gives me lots of movies and old sitcoms, plus a couple of network news stations that honestly don’t offer the most in-depth coverage.

Fortunately, there is the internet. And on the internet, there are news services from every corner of the world: CNN, BBC, RFE/RL, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Kyiv Independent . . . even the Moscow Times and TASS from Russia. And more.

I don’t have time to read all of them, so I’ve relied on a chosen few that I found to be the most dependable and least biased, which worked well . . . until, one by one, they began requiring paid subscriptions for online access to their full stories. And there’s the rub.

Now, I get it; I do. The print publications — the Times, the Journal, the Post, et al. — are businesses whose subscriptions have no doubt decreased as more and more people have come to rely on the internet. But why are the TV broadcasters, whose programming is included under their customers’ cable or satellite contracts, also starting to charge for internet access — which logically should be covered by our internet service fees?

I am a news junkie. I am also an older, retired woman with a limited income; I can’t justify the cost of a half dozen subscriptions in addition to what I already pay for internet service (not to mention that Fire TV).

We are living in a time when it is increasingly important to be well-informed by reliable, impartial news sources, so as not to be taken in by all of the misinformation, disinformation, and AI garbage coming at us from every direction. If the legitimate, mainstream media were to become inaccessible, we would be truly lost.

Does anyone out there have a solution?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/6/26

Yesterday was a comparatively good day, news-wise.

On the war front, 314 prisoners of war — 157 Ukrainians and an equal number of Russians — were exchanged and returned home to their families.

And in the United States, Congress passed a bipartisan bill approving $200 million in security assistance for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the face of perceived threats of aggression from Russia.

So it was a day to celebrate, as Buddha would have advised:

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”

In a world where life seems to grow more difficult with each passing day, it helps to focus on the good stuff, and to be thankful that — at least today — we didn’t die.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/6/26

Can it be? Is the U.S. Congress finally waking from its year-long sleep? Have the members begun looking at the facts of life and stopped listening to the hyperbole and outright lies emanating from high-ranking members of the administration? Have they at last taken a closer look at the state of our country’s foreign relations? Or have they merely become aware of the approach of the mid-term elections, when many of their jobs will be at risk of being snatched from them?

Whatever the reason, in a near-miracle of bipartisan action, Congress has just approved — as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 Defense Appropriations Act passed this week — $200 million in security assistance for the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, signaling continued U.S. backing under the Baltic Security Initiative . . . and this despite Pentagon attempts to defund the program.

Republican Congressman Don Bacon — a retired Air Force Brigadier General and co-chair of the House Baltic Caucus, said:

“This is great for deterrence for our Baltic allies. Congress is committed to a strong NATO alliance, and we know that extra emphasis is needed in regard to the Baltics. Most in Congress are committed to NATO and know we need friends to counter China, Russia and Iran. We cannot do it alone. America alone is America weaker.” [Alex Raufoglu, RFE/RL, February 5, 2026.]

Referencing the recent repeated intrusions by Russian drones and aircraft into Estonian and other NATO airspace, Bacon noted that the outcome of the war in Ukraine will directly affect the Baltic states and other neighboring countries, adding:

“If Ukraine falls, we should know with certainty that Moldova will be next” . . . most likely to be followed by the Baltics and Georgia.

“We should not be neutral,” he continued. “We should stand on the side of freedom . . . and against a dictator thug.” [Id.]

Although the Defense Appropriations Act passed the House by a slim 217-214 margin, it cleared the Senate with a much more impressive 71-29 vote, and was promptly signed into law by Donald Trump . . . proving that, when push comes to shove, our lawmakers can work together toward a worthwhile goal.

Now let’s see if they can keep the ball rolling.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/6/26

To the surprise of practically no one, this week’s two-day trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi seems to have yielded little or no progress toward an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The one good bit of news was the exchange — agreed to on Wednesday — of 314 prisoners, which was immediately implemented on Thursday. Welcome home to all, on both sides.

But that’s it. As usual, Steve Witkoff posted a rosy forecast on X:

“While significant work remains, steps like this demonstrate that sustained diplomatic engagement is delivering tangible results and advancing efforts to end the war in Ukraine.” [RFE/RL, February 5, 2026.]

Meanwhile, however, Russia continues to launch massive barrages of drones and missiles on various regions of Ukraine, largely targeting its civilian energy infrastructure.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia’s position has not changed and is “absolutely clear and well understood by both Kyiv and the American negotiators.” [Id.]

And Markus Ziener, a former Moscow-based correspondent and now a fellow with the German Marshall Fund — while acknowledging that the prisoner swap was an indication of some progress — said:

“But I’m rather skeptical if we get to the nitty-gritty, actually, of the whole negotiations. So far, there is not really much that gives us hope that a settlement of the war is within reach.” [Id.]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the next round of talks with Russia is “likely” to take place in the U.S., with no timeline being announced as yet.

But despite the obvious need for Zelensky to remain hopeful, nothing is certain. As stated by Markus Ziener:

“I would put myself in the shoes of the Russian president: if I want to negotiate a peace settlement, I would not hammer Ukraine and pound them the way they do. I would actually try to create a situation where you can reach a settlement. Given all the sacrifices Ukraine has [made] so far, I think it’s very difficult for Ukraine to say, OK, well, we’ll cede to the Russian demands and [then] so many lives have been lost lost in vain. So I believe that it’s difficult really to find a settlement that would ask Ukrainians to make major concessions at this point.” [Id.]

Sadly, given the history of the negotiations thus far, Ziener emerges as the voice of reason.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/5/26

There are a lot of pages of history between the end of yesterday’s “Introduction” and today’s “Chapter 25.” But talking about my own experiences isn’t the purpose of this exercise. The point of sharing my long-ago thoughts with you is that the tired old adage — “The more things change, the more they stay the same” — like all adages, has stood the test of time because it is true.

As things were in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist years and throughout the decades of the Cold War, so they remain today . . . only with bigger, “badder” weaponry.

So here is the final chapter, offered up as a cautionary tale for today and all of our tomorrows. Please keep in mind that it was written three years ago; Aldrich Ames is no longer in prison, having passed away in January.

And thanks for coming back for Part II.

*. *. *

CHAPTER 25
What’s Next?

Now, after decades spent trying to determine who really helped to put the most destructive American traitor of the 20th Century out of business and behind bars, I have at last come to the conclusion that it no longer matters — not to me, in any event. Was it someone I knew, someone I brought to the United States and delivered into the hands of the FBI? Perhaps. But what if it was? Knowing the truth might be a source of personal satisfaction, but it’s irrelevant in the context of today’s geopolitical turmoil. If someone else deserves the credit, let them have it. Our — mankind’s — overriding concern now is the future of our world, and how to help secure it by heeding the lessons of the past. Do we continue repeating our disastrous mistakes again, and again, and yet again, until it is indeed too late and Armageddon becomes the final reality? Or do we finally open our eyes and our minds and begin to pay attention to the ongoing insidious machinations of the Kremlin and its inner circle of miscreants?

“But what are these lessons of the past?” you may ask. Let me cite just a few:

> In 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (renamed Lenin) promised the Russian people a future of “Peace, Land and Bread,” and relief from the yoke of Tsarist hegemony. What did he and his successors deliver instead? Seven years of brutal totalitarianism, complete with a “Big Brother” society and an archipelago of GULAGs stretching across eleven time zones from the Urals to the Pacific.

> In August of 1939, the eponymous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — a treaty of non-aggression guaranteeing, among other things, that the Soviet Union and Germany would remain allies and would never invade one another’s territories — was negotiated and signed by the respective emissaries of Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. As the dogs of war snapped at the heels of Europe, Stalin chose to place his trust in his friend Hitler, and turned his attention to annexing parts of Finland and Romania, and all of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Hitler, meanwhile, was busy invading Poland and beyond; yet he managed to find time to plan what would become Operation Barbarossa: the invasion of his professed ally, the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. So much for friendship and trust.

> On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached, and three weeks later, at the Malta Summit meeting between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Cold War was declared kaput. Two years after that, on December 26, 1991, the fifteen Soviet republics gained their respective sovereignties, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist as a political entity. Russia, we were assured, was now our friend. The march toward democracy and capitalism had begun; we could take a deep breath and relax.

So why, in the face of all of this more recent peace, good will, and back-slapping brotherhood, have we continued — throughout the remainder of the 20th Century and now well into the 21st — to spy on, undermine, and threaten one another as though all of our earlier peace initiatives had never occurred? Why have the Aldrich Ames, Bob Hanssens, and countless others been ignored until their irreparable damage has been done? Why do we still need the American CIA, FBI, NSA, and the rest of the Washington alphabet soup, to counter Russia’s still-threatening FSB, SVR, GRU, et al.?

Because, after thirty years of relative peace and quiet, we find ourselves confronted by the uncomfortable fact that we are now in a new Cold War — or, more accurately, that the old one never really ended, but has merely risen again from its own ashes.

Russia rode out the 1990s under the more-or-less benign presidency of Boris Yeltsin in an atmosphere of hope and increasing prosperity. And then, while the rest of the world was focused on the burgeoning problems in the Far East and Middle East, along came Vladimir Putin, slithering his way into Yeltsin’s chair before anyone in the West even knew who he was.

Well, we know who he is now, don’t we? He is the individual who has rolled back the Russian calendar to the Stalinist era: banning dissent, shutting down all independent media outlets; imprisoning or simply assassinating those who do not comply with his new, ever-more-draconian laws; and — to ensure that the world gets his message — invading Ukraine in a blatantly obvious war of attrition that he stubbornly insists on labelling a “special military operation.”

And for those who would wish Vladimir Putin gone with the wave of a magic wand or the twitch of a genie’s nose, a word of warning: Be careful what you wish for. Because standing behind him is a bevy of sycophants ready to vie for the job, each more treacherous than the last. An internecine battle in the halls of the Kremlin would truly be an historic event of apocalyptic proportions.

How have we let it come to this? I shudder as I recall those months of living in Moscow, in what were supposed to be times of peace and freedom, and slowly coming to realize then that nothing had changed in the government but the names on the doors. And the longer period of two years when I lived and worked amongst the FBI, CIA, KGB, a pair of Russian defectors, and several ancillary players who may or may not have been who or what they professed to be.

I shudder . . . not from any remembrance of long-ago events, but from the realization that, however much things may seem to progress, in reality we continue to allow them to stay the same.”

*. *. *

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/5/26

Speaking of tyrants — as I so often do — few people have described the goals and the methods of a tyrannical regime better than this fellow:

If this warning from the past sounds relevant today, it should:

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

– George Orwell, “1984”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/5/26

To quote the fictional Professor Henry Higgins when he realized he’d grown unexpectedly fond of Eliza Dolittle:

“DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!”

When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would not be joining bilateral Ukraine-Russia meetings in Abu Dhabi scheduled for February 4-5, I had high hopes that a new, more qualified, team of negotiators was about to be appointed to carry on the continuing peace talks.

But, alas! It was not to be. On the first day of talks on Wednesday, lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov posted on X:

“Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi. The negotiation process started in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States, and Russia. Next comes work in separate groups by specific tracks, after which a follow-up joint synchronization of positions is planned.” [RFE/RL, February 4, 2026.]

Following the first day’s session on Wednesday, no details were offered; but Umerov’s spokeswoman, Diana Davitian, told journalists that a second day of talks was planned to be held on Thursday. [Id.]

And then I read that “US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, along with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are representing the United States at the negotiations with Ukraine and Russia.” [Id.]

One brief, shining moment of hope, and then . . .

I’ve said it before: Two more hapless victims of Vladimir Putin’s duplicitous political machinations would be difficult to find . . . and he knows it. As long as Witkoff and Kushner continue as Donald Trump’s messengers, and Trump continues to control the U.S. and European narrative, this war will drag on, because that is what Putin wants.

Of course, I could be wrong. But we’ll see what happens in Thursday’s second-round meeting.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/5/26

What a wakeup call!

The name of someone with whom I was acquainted many years ago just popped up in the Epstein files.

I will not identify him, because there is no indication that he was involved in any of Epstein’s despicable, odious, heinous — not to mention, illegal — activities. Nor do I have any reason to believe he was.

But what struck me was how small this world really is, and how easy it is for someone like me — or you — to be just one or two degrees of separation from an abomination like Jeffrey Epstein.

And I see in this a lesson for those who would rush to judgment on the thousands of people named in those files: Mere interaction with someone — being introduced at a social gathering, or involved in a legitimate business transaction — does not make you part of their inner circle. Nor do you “catch” another person’s worst character traits by being in their presence; it’s not a virus.

In these days when most of us spend at least some time on social media, it is too easy to make a snap judgment based on partial information. We need to be careful not to do that . . . because you never know when someone you once met, perhaps a long time ago, might drag you down with them.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/4/26