This one was inspired by yesterday’s ludicrous “briefing” by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi before the Congressional House Oversight Committee, and requires no further explanation or comment from me:

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/20/26

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was notorious for its spying activities, which included everything from intelligence-gathering to cold-blooded murder. And, though the Kremlin may deny it, those activities never really ended after the collapse of the communist regime and the establishment of the Russian Federation; they have simply shifted focus and methodology as necessitated by the changing political, technological, and societal realities of the new millennium.

The dreaded KGB did not cease to exist either. Effective December 3, 1991, it was simply bifurcated: the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), like the American CIA, is in charge of foreign espionage activities; while the FSB (Federal Security Service) mirrors the American FBI in handling domestic security and counterintelligence.

But don’t let the change of names fool you. In May of 1993, a year and a half after the official restructuring, an agent in Moscow — apparently assigned to keep an eye on our U.S. humanitarian aid organization — still identified himself to me as being with the “KGB.”

And since the onset of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022, there has been a notable increase in disparate, seemingly disconnected attacks on Western nations. These have included localized explosions, fires, severing of undersea cables, and the occasional targeted abduction or assassination — all designed so as to offer deniability, but nonetheless bearing the undeniable trademark of the old KGB methods. These activities have become known as Putin’s “hybrid war.”

*. *. *

But sometimes, even the best covert agents screw up — perhaps overlooking that one little detail, or underestimating the skills of their adversaries. And that is what recently happened to a top-secret unit of elite Russian intelligence agents known as Center 795.

According to an investigation undertaken by The Insider, Center 795 had been “designed to function as a ‘shadow army’ and given full autonomy, allowing the unit to bypass the Defense Ministry’s cumbersome and ineffective bureaucracy.” [Meduza, March 13, 2026.]

Consisting of some 500 carefully-selected and specially-trained officers, Center 795 is led by one Denis Fisenko, a veteran of the FSB special forces Alfa Group. According to The Insider, it was “designed to carry out everything from military assassinations and abductions targeting Kremlin critics abroad. However, the recent exposure of one agent is ‘bound to create lasting problems.’” [Id.]

That agent is Denis Alimov. He was arrested at the airport in Bogota, Colombia, on February 24, 2026 (ironically, the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), by Colombian authorities in cooperation with Interpol agents. He is being extradited to the United States in accordance with an arrest warrant issued by a U.S. court on December 18, 2025, charging Alimov with conspiracy to kidnap and commit murder, and with providing material support to terrorists. [Sania Kozatskyi, Militarynyi, February 26, 2026.]

What led to his downfall was a bad outsourcing decision. He has specifically been accused of planning assassination attempts against two or more prominent Chechen dissidents based in Europe, recruiting a triggerman to do the dirty work: one Darko Durovic, a Serbo-Croatian speaker living in the United States. Durovic was offered $1.5 million for each target successfully “deported to Russia,” dead or alive. [Meduza, op.cit.]

But there was a problem: Alimov and Durovic spoke different languages. Although their email messages were sent via an encrypted app, they had to rely on Google Translate to bridge the language gap, which created a plain-text trail on Google’s services . . . thereby enabling the FBI, under a U.S. surveillance warrant, to monitor their communications in real time. [Id.]

Genius.

*. *. *

Gone are the days of passing handwritten messages written in disappearing ink. Modern communications have allowed business — whether legitimate or dirty — to be conducted quickly, remotely, and (sometimes) anonymously.

Sometimes . . . but not always.

Everyone — well, everyone but Denis Alimov, apparently — knows that in today’s cyber world, there are no absolute guarantees of privacy. And as clever as you may be, there will always be someone smarter.

So, for all of its years of experience, intensive training, and outlays of cash invested in its “elite” Center 795, the Moscow intelligence community has been dealt a hugely embarrassing blow to its dignity . . . not to mention the once-secretive nature of its “top secret” corps of assassins.

Whether this revelation will result in any sort of setback to Center 795’s future operations is unknown. But at the very least, it leaves Vladimir Putin with a trace of egg on his face.

And that always cheers me up.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/20/26

The writings of Winston Churchill contain a never-ending trove of wit, whimsy and wisdom. And today’s quote is being passed along for the benefit of all of those Cabinet members and other Washington insiders who might not already have learned from Kristi Noem’s experience:

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

– Winston S. Churchill

It also might be good advice for those world leaders who haven’t yet figured it out.

Take a hint, people: The crocodile’s appetite is insatiable.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/19/26

It’s difficult to say, as the organization itself seems to remain out of the headlines except during their annual summit. But some of their individual member nations have been very much in the news lately, in ways that would appear to be giving the bloc a substantial boost in achieving its ultimate goal — which is nothing less than the establishment of a new world order to replace the existing Western-dominated political and economic systems.

And Donald Trump’s misguided war against Iran is playing right into their hands.

Last year, on February 24, 2025, I posted an article titled “BRICS is Dead; Long Live BRICS,” which read in part:

*. *. *

What he (Trump) said last week — after threatening the BRICS member nations with 150% tariffs if they attempted to promote an alternative currency to the U.S. dollar — was this:

“BRICS states were trying to destroy our dollar. They wanted to create a new currency. So when I came in, the first thing I said was any BRICS state that even mentions the destruction of the dollar will be charged a 150% tariff, and we don’t want your goods and the BRICS states just broke up. . . . I don’t know what the hell happened to them. We haven’t heard from the BRICS states lately.” [NDTV.com, February 21, 2022.]

It’s difficult to separate the truth from the imaginary in anything said by someone who can’t remember his own words. Because in January, Trump had threatened — not 150% — but a 100% tariff if the BRICS nations wanted to “play games.” [NDTV.com, February 14, 2022.] At a press briefing at that time, he was asked whether he wanted to dismantle BRICS or become a part of it, to which he responded:

“I don’t care, but BRICS was put there for a bad purpose and most of those people don’t want it. They don’t even want to talk about it now. They’re afraid to ask about it because I told them if they want to play games with the dollar, then they’re going to be hit with a 100 per cent tariff. The day they mention that they want to do it and they will come back and say we beg you, we beg you not to do this. BRICS is dead since I mentioned that. BRICS died the minute I mentioned that and now I remember when Obama and Biden, in particular, I guess he said that oh, they have us over a barrel.” [Id.] [Bold emphasis is mine.]

I just want to know one thing: What on earth has Donald Trump been smoking?!! Because there is not one phrase in all of that gobbledegook that makes an ounce of sense.

To begin with, BRICS is neither dead nor dying. If they were, would they have added five new members — Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — since last year, doubling their size? And would they have added a new membership category — “Partner States” — in 2024 to accommodate the integration of prospective members?

Those Partner States are effectively observers, not yet officially part of the BRICS bloc, but guaranteed of support from the full members. Thus far, some 22 countries have been invited to become Partner States. Only three — Algeria, Turkiye and Vietnam — had not yet confirmed their status as of mid-January.

And if, as Trump would like to believe, BRICS were indeed finished, would they even now be busily planning their 2025 Summit in July, to be hosted in Brazil?

To be sure, Donald Trump is not wrong in considering BRICS a threat to U.S. supremacy — in fact, to the entire structure of the Western world. It was founded by Vladimir Putin in 2009 for the sole purpose of building an organization strong enough to run counter to NATO, the EU, the G7, and — who knows? — possibly even the United Nations.

But if Trump thinks throwing tariffs at the member states is going to cause them to put their chairs back on the table and slink home in defeat, he is living in an alternate reality.

Because, with Vladimir Putin at the helm, it isn’t going to be that easy.

*. *. *

That was then. Fast-forward to March 2026, with the U.S. and Israel bombarding Iran and killing off its leaders, and Iran retaliating by attacking U.S. and Israeli interests throughout the Middle East . . . and, perhaps most significantly, closing the Strait of Hormuz to virtually all oil shipments — normally 20 percent of the world’s supply — thereby plunging international energy systems and markets into total chaos.

Do you remember the French uprising of 1832 as depicted in Les Miserables . . . and how the opportunist innkeeper and his wife benefited by robbing the dead of their valuables? It was a vivid illustration of a fact of life: that from every tragedy, someone finds a way to profit from other people’s misery.

And today, it is BRICS, and a number of its members, that will reap the benefits from Trump’s fiasco. Case in point:

In a futile effort to mitigate the worldwide surge in energy prices resulting from his disastrous actions, Trump has already eased sanctions against Russia, allowing it to continue selling oil to China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia and others. Russia thereby profits financially, enabling it to refill its war chest and continue its brutal invasion of Ukraine. And the purchasers obviously benefit from the availability of that cheap Russian oil.

As for China, they received an added boon when Pakistan made a deal with Iran to allow a Pakistani tanker, the MT KARACHI, through the Hormuz Strait on the condition that payment be made — not in dollars, euros, or any other Western currency — but in Chinese yuan.

Note that Russia, China, India, Brazil and Iran are all members of BRICS, and Pakistan has applied for membership. The fact that Chinese yuan are now being accepted — in fact, preferred — as payment on the world market cannot be coincidental.

BRICS is far from dead; on the contrary, it would appear to be making significant progress toward its ultimate goal. And, intentionally or otherwise, Donald Trump is helping to accelerate the process by creating the perfect conditions for its growth.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/19/26

Let’s say you’ve had a best friend since you were kids in elementary school together. You had sleepovers at each other’s homes, helped one another with homework, swapped Legos and trading cards, shared your innermost secrets . . . even went to the same college.

As adults, you remained friends. You double-dated, were in each other’s weddings, your spouses became friends, your children grew up together. You carpooled, gave each other career advice, helped out during family emergencies, vacationed together, and talked about retirement communities for the future.

Then one day something happened. Maybe a couple of your children had a falling-out, or you disagreed about a political issue, or a mutual acquaintance told one of you a lie about the other. It doesn’t matter what caused it; the breakup was devastating.

From that time on, you didn’t speak; you quit the country club you loved because your ex-friend was a member; you even switched doctors so you wouldn’t accidentally bump into each other there.

But that wasn’t enough. Your ex-friend was so hurt and so upset, they began publicly ridiculing and insulting you, posting terrible lies on social media, claiming that you had never really been a true friend at all. They became so embittered, their spouse — and most of their other friends — left them.

After a while, they made new friends. And at a party one evening, they had a couple of drinks too many, got behind the wheel, and on the way home caused an accident that killed someone in another vehicle. They were arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter. They needed help . . . but they had burned all their bridges and had no one to turn to.

Then they remembered their trusted old friend: you. They knew — or thought they knew — that you couldn’t let them languish in jail. So they called you and said that they needed you to put up the bail money for them, and — when their case came to trial — to lie: to testify that you had been with them at the party and knew that they had not been drinking after all. To risk everything for them.

Now, here’s the hypothetical question: What do you do? Do you help your unfaithful ex-friend . . . or tell them to take a flying leap into the nearest active volcano?

This is not a “Dear Abby” column. As you may have surmised, the question is analogous to the situation in which Donald Trump now finds himself, after having spent years bad-mouthing and double-crossing every one of America’s allies, the United Nations, NATO, the EU, and all those “shithole countries” (his words) around the world.

And all because he went batshit crazy one day, invaded Iran against all advice and all logic, and created a world crisis so widespread and so dangerous that he hasn’t the vaguest idea of how to fix it. Then he suddenly remembered those old allies — and Article 5 of the NATO treaty dealing with collective defense — and tried to convince them that they should send their military forces, and spend their money, to get him out of the mess he’d made.

And when they reminded him that Article 5 does indeed refer to defense, and not to offensive actions in which they had no part and had never even been consulted, he once again lashed out at them, saying he didn’t need them after all.

But he does need them. And, like our fictitious bad friend, he finds himself alone and lonely . . . but on the world stage, and with a lot more deaths and other misdeeds to answer for.

The only thing Trump has going for him that our hypothetical ex-friend didn’t is the fact that all of those allies have a major stake in the outcome of his latest fiasco. And they have consciences, meaning that they want the best possible result for everyone.

Right now, they’re not responding as Trump would have liked. But in the long run, they may have no choice.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/18/26

Today is my birthday . . . again. (Wasn’t the last one only a couple of months ago?)

Don’t ask for a number; I’ll just tell you that, while my mind still operates on the level of a 13-year-old, my body keeps reminding me that I’m older than dirt.

But stand-up comedian, actor, writer and film producer Steven Wright — who is a few years younger than I — has a great attitude about aging. He has said:

“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”

Yeah? Well, let’s see if he still feels that way about living forever when he reaches my age and everything that doesn’t hurt like hell has gone completely numb or stopped working altogether.

But for now, I will agree with the second half of his philosophy: “So far, so good.”

Happy birthday to me.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/18/26

This is too good to keep to myself.

I was watching a David Pakman broadcast on YouTube last evening, in which a guest referred to certain people in the Trump administration as “sycophants.”

Closed captioning was turned on, and I happened to glance at the screen at exactly that moment . . . just in time to catch the description of those government employees ingloriously translated for all the world to see as:

“Sicko pants”

As though being a sycophant isn’t demeaning enough!

Now, I’ve seen some funny ones over the years — we all have — but what struck me about this one was its absolute appropriateness . . . and I just had to share it with you.

Thanks, CC. I needed that.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/17/26

From elementary school teacher in Karabash, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia (near the northern border of Kazakhstan), to Academy Award recipient at Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, is one giant step for a self-described “Mr. Nobody.” But Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin just made that leap.

Once a student at Karabash Primary School No. 1, where his mother worked as school librarian, Pasha later returned there as a teacher and the school’s videographer — by all accounts, a very normal, contented life.

But in 2022, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, and to support his “special military operation” — in truth, nothing more than an illegal land grab — he began a massive propaganda program throughout the country, focusing heavily on the population’s most vulnerable: the children. The official curriculum in the country’s schools was changed to require “patriotic” teaching, including references to the war as the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.

But Pavel Talankin couldn’t accept the lies. He continued filming school programs as usual, though under new instructions to delete any material that might reveal the nature and extent of the Soviet-style curriculum. And he began secretly making duplicate, unedited videos of classes, pro-war student assemblies — even including weapons training by the infamous paramilitary Wagner Group. He found a way to send the unedited videos out of the country to an American man he had met online, filmmaker David Borenstein, who became his co-director and worked with him remotely from Europe for two years.

Those films ultimately became the documentary, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” And on Sunday, Pavel Talankin and David Borenstein took home Oscars.

Pasha eventually had to flee Russia, leaving behind his mother, his friends, his students, and a job that he once loved. As Borenstein explained:

“When Pasha picked up the camera, it was because he felt he was trapped in this Kafkaesque system. He says it in the film: ‘Being a propagandist at this school is like walking a tightrope.’” [Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News, March 16, 2026.]

He booked a supposed vacation in Turkey, and never returned home. He is currently living in an undisclosed location somewhere in Europe.

Before flying to Los Angeles, Pavel gave an interview on CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” in London, in which he said:

“When the teacher had to say Ukraine had taken the path of neo-Nazism and neo-fascism, and we must ‘liberate’ it, at that moment I understood that I had no moral right to delete this material, because it is part of the evidence of what’s happening in Russian schools today.” [Id.]

Asked if he believed Russian authorities had become suspicious of him, Pavel replied:

“Sometimes I thought so. In Russia you never know. No one will call you; no one will knock on your door. They just watch, and then suddenly break the door down, throw you on the floor, and the floor is the last thing you see in your apartment. That’s it; you don’t exist anymore.” [Id.]

The Kremlin claims they’ve been too busy to watch the film. Translation: they’ve seen it, and haven’t yet decided what to do about it.

But Pavel’s mother, who appears in the film, has seen it. She even gave an interview to the New York Times in which she expressed her pride in her son. Conscience and courage obviously run in the family.

*. *. *

Like the samizdat of Soviet times, Pavel Talankin’s film is a vital means of getting out to the world the truth of life in Putin’s Russia. He expresses his fear for the future of the children he left behind:

“This is a very important document, because it shows what Russian society will be like in a few years. Putin may no longer exist, but society will be evil, because propaganda entered schools and was taught to children.” [Id.]

In response to a question, he said that he feels “probably 80 percent safe” from retribution, but that:

“It’s also, to me, a story about resistance. Everybody faces a moral choice wherever you are, and this is a story also about what you do when there is a government around you tearing down everything that you have built up.” [Id.]

And when his co-director David Borenstein accepted his Oscar, he had this to add:

“‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is about how you lose your country. And what we saw when working with this footage, it’s that you lose it through countless small, little acts of complicity, when we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it. We all face a moral choice. But luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think.” [Id.]

Pavel Talankin and David Borenstein — two “Mister Somebodies,” whose courage and conviction stand as a shining example to us all.

Congratulations, and thank you!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/17/26

Garry Kasparov is a world chess grandmaster, author, and Russian political dissident living in exile in Croatia, who knows the workings of the Russian hierarchy as well as anyone alive.

When asked about the prospects of peace talks with Vladimir Putin, he had this to say:

Conversely, real estate huckster and U.S. special envoy to everywhere, Steve Witkoff, recently offered an opinion based on a few meetings with Putin, in which he proffered:

If you were asked to decide, whose word would you be inclined to take?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/16/26

Things weren’t going so well for Donald Trump. Negotiations to end the war in Ukraine — the one he said he would wrap up within days of taking office in January 2025 — were stalled; Americans were seeing through his lies about prices coming down, jobs being created and salaries going up; U.S. citizens were being killed as collateral damage in his brutal immigration roundup; his MAGA base, and even his Republican-majority Congress, were beginning to develop cracks; his administration was being run by incompetent, self-serving yes-men (and women); and worst of all, the Epstein files weren’t going away.

So he did what any normal person occupying the most powerful office in the world would immediately think to do: he invaded Iran, with no legitimate justification, no authorization from Congress, no sane strategy, and no exit plan.

In the meantime, Ukraine continued to fight for its life for the fifth consecutive year. But the next round of peace talks, which had been tentatively slated to begin last week, were put on hold — to the obvious delight of Vladimir Putin. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, scheduling the negotiations had become difficult because it was unclear when U.S. officials would be able to participate. [Alex Raufoglu, RFE/RL, March 13, 2026.]

This time it was not Putin who caused the postponement; it was Trump’s and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s decision to divert the nation’s military resources to the Middle East, where their disastrous attack on Iran — initially touted as a surgical strike that would be over in the blink of an eye — has instead broadened into a multi-nation war of retribution against U.S. allies in the region.

Who starts a new war — and on false pretenses, at that — before an ongoing war is wrapped up? A blithering idiot, that’s who. One who, despite a lifetime of failures, still believes he can cover up his disastrous mistakes by creating more chaos. Who has no sense of loyalty to his allies. Who doesn’t give a flying fig how many people are killed, crippled, bankrupted and disenfranchised by his actions. Who is motivated only by ego and greed.

And when the shit once again hits the fan, what does he do? First, he dissembles — no, he LIES — about his justifications, his “goals,” and how things are going. Then he calls upon those very allies he so recently insulted and turned his back on — our traditional NATO allies — and asks them to put themselves in harm’s way by helping him out of his latest mess, because suddenly we’re all friends again.

And what about Ukraine? Well, here’s where it gets interesting. It seems that four years of being forced to stand up against the might of Russia’s forces has also provided the smaller country with an unexpected opportunity. Ukraine has suddenly emerged as the world’s leading experts in drone technology, production and wartime application, with particular emphasis on the Iranian Shahed drones that Iran has been selling to Russia and is now using in its own retaliatory strikes against U.S. interests in the Middle East.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in appreciation for America’s assistance throughout the course of Russia’s assault, had offered to share its innovative technology with the U.S., but was met with a shocking lack of interest . . . until recently. Suddenly, Trump and his squad of stable geniuses have come to realize that we may need these newer, more effective, and less expensive weapons after all. And Zelensky — being the far bigger man — is still willing to share his bounty with us.

Now, that’s irony at its best.

And that’s what I call a President.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/16/26