He never does what you expect him to do. In the middle of an action, he delights in pulling a 180, just to keep people on their toes. And sometimes it seems he’s genuinely confused, not sure why he said or did something in the first place, and simply denies it ever happened.

That can be totally frustrating for his immediate circle of friends and family. But when it carries over into the running of a country, or the balance of power of the entire world, it’s more than upsetting . . . it’s potentially cataclysmic.

But that is Donald Trump’s modus operandi. Somewhere in the years of his youth, he must have heard the lyrics to the old popular song, “I’ve Got the World On a String” (Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, 1932), and taken it literally.

We’ve seen it in his treatment of Vladimir Putin: threatening one day, best friends the next.

He virtually excoriates Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in front of the entire world, threatens to cut off aid to Ukraine . . . and then reconsiders.

When Israel and Iran begin lobbing missiles at one another, he jumps in to help Israel, then screams at Netanyahu not to escalate by retaliating when Iran violates the ceasefire he, Trump, has just brokered.

He threatens to pull the U.S. out of NATO, calls it useless, then takes over the summit as though he owns it.

And those are just a few of the highlights of the past five months. It’s the way he operated his businesses and his TV “reality” show . . . and it’s the way he operates on the world stage.

Needless to say, he runs the U.S. government the same way. During his first administration, the White House was said to have a revolving door. He seems to delight in hiring people for their professed loyalty rather than their qualifications for the job, only to fire them for the slightest infraction, real or imagined. He signs executive orders, then retracts them. He has his pseudo-governmental agency, DOGE, cut the staffing and funding of vital departments to the bone, only to have to reverse course when — to his great surprise — things stop working properly.

And he very publicly breaks up with his BFF over a difference of opinion, then reconsiders . . . sort of.

*. *. *

To say his methodology is inefficient would be the most extreme of understatements. It is tearing the country apart, and destabilizing virtually every nation in the world. It’s also making us a laughing stock.

So why does he do it . . . in fact, why has he always done it? Is he diabolically evil? A little sadistic? Clinically schizophrenic? Perhaps, as it often seems, he simply lashes out in anger when things aren’t going his way, or when he needs to divert the public’s attention from other matters.

Any of those scenarios could prove disastrous for the leader of the free world. Imagine his being so uncontrollably angry one day that he blurts out, on live TV, that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”

Oh, wait . . . you don’t have to imagine it. He did that, today, again for the whole world to see and hear on live TV.

That is a sign of an individual on the brink of losing control . . . if he hasn’t already lost it.

And that individual is the man pulling the strings.

Which is keeping me — and a lot of other people — awake at night.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/24/25

The entire world knows that Vladimir Putin’s word means nothing.

He pays lip service to human rights, then imprisons, tortures and kills journalists and dissidents who criticize his regime. He calls for meetings to negotiate a peace agreement with Ukraine, then reiterates and increases his impossible demands. He claims his troops only target military facilities, then destroys apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, and historic landmarks.

And he swears (though not on a bible) that it is not, never has been, and never will be his intention to invade another country after Ukraine.

But on June 20th, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he declared that the “whole of Ukraine” — not just the 20 percent presently occupied by his forces — belongs to Russia. In his words:

“Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.” [Zachary Schermele and Savannah Kuchar, USA Today, June 21, 2025.]

Which is why most of the NATO and EU countries bordering or close to Russian territory have been tightening their borders and increasing their defenses. Because they know that the feet of Russian soldiers are not far away.

And to reinforce his capabilities — in case anyone should still have doubts — yesterday he fired dozens of drones and missiles into Ukraine . . . demolishing a housing bloc, killing 10 civilians, and burying others beneath the rubble in Kyiv alone. [Stanislav Doshchitsyn and Ania Tsoukanova, AFP, June 23, 2025.]

The Russian army claimed it had used precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles to strike Ukrainian military facilities, saying that “All the designated targets were destroyed.” [Id.]

They lied.

And Donald Trump still believes he can negotiate with this man, or wear him down with threats of more sanctions. But Vladimir Putin is the embodiment of Shakespeare’s Richard III:

“And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.”

Everyone knows you can’t negotiate with the devil.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/24/25

Amongst the endless tales of war, spying, corruption, and countless other examples of man’s inhumanity to man, it would be impossible for me to pass up a rare opportunity to bring a bit of happy news to my readers. And I couldn’t wait to share this story, rather than save it for my next regular Sunday update on the Russian/Belarusian hostage situation.

Hours after filing yesterday’s post, I was thrilled to read that Belarus’ presumptive president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, had agreed to release 14 political prisoners, including three whose names have lingered on my hostage list for far too long: Siarhei Tsikhanouski, Ihar Karnei (or Karney), and Ihar Losik. And separately, one more from our list — Vladyslav Yesypenko — was also released. It will give me great joy to scratch through all of their names next Sunday.

The others who were freed, whom I have not yet seen identified, include individuals from Belarus, Poland, Latvia, Japan, and Sweden. They were all sent to Lithuania, where they are said to be receiving care and shelter. [Anastasiia Kruope, Human Rights Watch, June 23, 2025.]

Thanks to the government of Lithuania for their invaluable diplomatic and humane assistance!

*. *. *

Siarhei Tsikhanouski was detained in May 2020 after announcing his intention to run for president against Lukashenko. His wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, ran in her husband’s place following his arrest, but was forced to flee the country under threat of reprisals.

*. *. *

Ukrainian journalist Yesypenko spent more than four years of a five-year sentence in prison in Russian-occupied Crimea. He was charged with espionage and possession of explosives, which he denied. While imprisoned, he was tortured, including with electric shocks, to force a confession. [Sonya Bandouil, Kyiv Independent, June 22, 2025.]

*. *. *

Belarusian journalist Ihar Karnei was arrested in 2023 and sentenced to three years in prison on charges of “extremism” — an all-purpose appellation widely used in Russia and Belarus as an excuse to arrest individuals who dare to criticize government officials or policies.

*. *. *

Ihar Losik is a journalist for RFE/RL’s Belarus Service. He was arrested in June of 2020 and tried on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement to hatred.” Following a five-month closed-door trial, he was convicted on December 14, 2021, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Following denial of his appeal, he was transferred to the Navapolatsk hard labor colony, and added to Belarus’ terrorist watch list in 2022.

*. *. *

According to Belarusian human rights activists, the Lukashenko regime — which is considered illegitimate by the EU, U.S., Canada and other countries — continues to hold an estimated 1,100 political prisoners of various nationalities. So there remains much work to be done.

But the release of these 15 hostages brings great joy in the knowledge that the U.S. and other governments have not forgotten these victims of repression, and a ray of hope for the future release of each and every one of those still imprisoned.

A huge thank-you to all involved!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25

With elections scheduled for next spring, and his right-wing Fidesz party slipping in the polls, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is desperately seeking ways to discredit his principal opponent in order to boost his own chances of reelection. And in his desperation, he’s just making stuff up as he goes along.

(Hmm . . . that sounds strangely like someone else I could name. But that’s a whole different nightmare.)

Orban has long been vocally pro-Putin, refusing to supply weapons to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, or even to allow them to transit from other countries through Hungary’s territory. Instead, he continues to demand that sanctions issued against Russia be lifted, and vehemently opposes EU membership for Ukraine.

But now he’s truly gone off the deep end, accusing his leading political opponent — Peter Magyar — of “entering into a treasonous pact with Kyiv to overthrow his government and install a pro-Western, pro-Ukraine administration.” [Justin Spike, AP, June 20, 2025.]

In comments on state radio earlier this month, Orban said:

“Let’s be under no illusions: Brussels and Ukraine are jointly building up a puppet government [in Hungary]. They want to change Hungary’s policy toward Ukraine after the next elections, or even sooner.” [Id.]

Bizarrely, he claims that Ukraine’s becoming a member of the EU would flood Hungary with crime, cheap labor, and low-quality agricultural products, thus threatening national sovereignty and economic stability.

But wait . . . it gets better. He also says that Brussels and Kyiv plan to force Hungarians to fight Russia on the front lines on Ukraine’s behalf. He has even posted a video to his social media page depicting AI-generated animated scenes of wounded, machine-gun-toting Hungarian soldiers engaged in battle, with rows of caskets beneath Hungarian flags.

“We don’t want our children, in the form of the Hungarian army, to be deployed to the Ukrainian front lines or to Ukrainian territory and to come back in coffins,” he says in the video. [Id.]

Orban’s delusional smear campaign is an obvious attempt to discredit an opponent who is gaining in popular support. Peter Kreko, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, says:

“There is an ongoing campaign against any critical voices in Hungary saying that they are agents of Ukraine, and this can be used also against [Peter Magyar’s] Tisza party. If you can’t win back public opinion anymore, then you can try to use a more authoritarian toolkit.” [Id.]

Unfortunately, this doesn’t end with verbal accusations. In May, Ukraine’s main security agency arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Hungary by trying to gather intelligence on Ukraine’s military defenses in the western part of the country. Diplomats were expelled on both sides, and Orban accused Magyar and the Tisza party of orchestrating the affair in order to undermine him.

Orban then further accused Magyar and a prominent Tisza member — without evidence — of having “deep ties with Ukrainian intelligence.” [Id.]

*. *. *

It’s hardly news that politics is a dirty business. But when a political campaign is based — not only on lies and false promises — but on paranoid, conspiracy-driven fantasies, it’s time to take stock of the people running, or hoping to run, the country.

Any country.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25

It’s a little early, I know. But Donald Trump has just given his two main adversaries the biggest, bestest Christmas gift that U.S. taxpayer dollars could buy, in the form of 14 GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs dropped on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The propaganda value alone is incalculable. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul summed up the effect Trump’s action would likely have on the Russian and Chinese leadership:

“I think we’ve really got to understand our other interests in the world that might be affected by this attack today. This is a preemptive war. The world does not support preemptive wars. We learned that in 2003” (referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq).

McFaul continued: “Putin will be celebrating this because he did his own preemptive war in Ukraine and now it’s like, well, this is just what great powers do. Maybe Xi Jinping is going to think the same. He’s going to say, ‘Well, if they can do it here, we can do it in Taiwan.’” [Sarah Fortinsky, The Hill, June 22, 2025.]

And from a purely practical point of view, what has Trump actually accomplished? Even assuming, as he apparently does, that the sites were totally destroyed, does that necessarily put the Iran nuclear program out of business?

Not according to Dmitry Medvedev, the ultra-hawkish Deputy Chairman of Putin’s Security Council, who said on Sunday:

“What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran? The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.” [Adam Schrader, UPI, June 22, 2025.]

Medvedev added that Israel’s pursuit of a regime change in Iran has not succeeded, and in fact may have “come out even stronger.” [Id.]

Russia’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the strikes as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter, and “a substantial blow to the global non-proliferation regime built around the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. They have significantly undermined both the credibility of the NPT and the integrity of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) monitoring and verification mechanisms that underpin it.” [Id.]

It’s impossible to overlook the irony of those words being spoken by officials of a country in the fourth year of its own illegal war of attrition against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. But it does make a point.

And then there’s the reaction from China’s Foreign Ministry, which also issued a statement charging that the U.S. had violated the U.N. charter and international law, and added:

“China stands ready to work with the international community to pool efforts together and uphold justice, and work for restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.” [Id.]

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, bringing peace to the world. Surely I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

*. *. *

In short, if Donald Trump had actually been trying to push Iran into the waiting arms of Putin and Xi, while simultaneously turning the United States into an international pariah, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.

I can hardly wait to see what he does for an encore.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/23/25

In 1939, Russia and Germany signed a non-aggression agreement — the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — pledging that neither would ever invade the other’s territory.

Two years later, on this date (June 22) in 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa: three parallel offensives into Russia staged by more than three million German troops . . . 19 panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces across a 1,000-mile front. [“This Day In History, History.com, June 22, 2025.]

Hitler’s word meant nothing. But he paid dearly for his betrayal: by opening a second front, he became the instrument of his own ultimate destruction.

*. *. *

Vladimir Putin, seeking to reinforce his image as Russia’s strongman, periodically stages a revolt or a “terror attack” by his scapegoat du jour — perhaps Chechnya, one of the Central Asian nations, his own friend Yevgeny Prigozhin, or more recently, Ukraine — and then brutally retaliates, claiming a victory in “protecting” his people from perceived harm.

I call it “heroism by proxy.” It is, of course, nothing more than an excuse for a lie.

*. *. *

Yesterday, Donald Trump . . . after pledging a two-week pause allowing Iran’s leaders time to consider their position as to a nuclear weapons agreement . . . and without bothering with the requisite Congressional approval . . . bombed three of Iran’s principal nuclear sites in a sneak attack that shocked the world. Or everyone but Israel, at any rate, in whose defense Trump claims to have acted.

In so doing, he thinks he has established himself as America’s tough guy, a force not to be messed with. In reality, he has proven himself, once again, to be nothing more than a world-class liar.

He lied to his supporters when he campaigned as the peace candidate who would never lead America into war.

He obviously lied when he told Iran he would hold off for two weeks.

And he may be lying when he says that these attacks were a one-off, that there would be no further action, and that negotiations could now resume. Because he has also said, while claiming this action as a great success, that there are still “many targets” left to destroy.

He lies daily, then denies that he ever said what millions of people around the world have heard him say.

He is no more wedded to the truth than Adolph Hitler or Vladimir Putin. In fact, he wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and smacked him across the face.

Which it may be just about to do. Meanwhile, we wait for whatever comes next.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

When Donald Trump berated NATO’s European member countries for what he said was their failure to contribute their fair shares to the alliance, and threatened to pull the U.S. out completely, he may inadvertently have done them a huge favor. Because what he did was jump-start a review of their respective defense capabilities vis-a-vis any possible threat from nearby Russia.

What the leaders of those European nations understand, but Trump refuses to acknowledge, is that such a threat is very real. Vladimir Putin has no intention of ending his expansionist plans with Ukraine. And while the world is occupied with conflicts in the Middle East, Putin is not sitting idly by.

According to a report published by the German news magazine Spiegel, citing a new strategy paper from the Bundeswehr, the German military considers Russia an “existential risk,” not only to Germany, but to the whole of Europe. The confidential document warns that “the Kremlin is aligning both its industrial and leadership structures ‘specifically to meet the requirements for a large-scale conflict against NATO by the end of this decade.’” [Reuters, June 20, 2025.]

The report further cites the strategy paper as saying that Russia is preparing for such a conflict by strengthening its forces in western Russia “at the borders with NATO,” and that they could have around 1.5 million soldiers on active duty as early as next year. [Id.]

Unlike the United States, Europe remembers all too clearly the years of living under Soviet occupation following World War II, and the way any revolt was met with brutal military force (most notably in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). And those nations that were once republics of the Soviet Union itself — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, and ten others — have known independence for little more than three decades . . . and most do not intend to surrender to Putin’s vision of a new union.

When Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently agreed with Donald Trump to increase Germany’s NATO defense spending target to five percent of GDP, he wasn’t submitting to Trump’s demands. He was being smart, and listening to what his military intelligence was telling him.

And we need to do the same. Pulling out of NATO at this point in time is probably the worst thing we could do, both for our European allies and for ourselves. In the modern world, isolationism simply cannot work to protect us.

We need our allies as much as they need us.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

In an action closely mimicking the methods of Russian authorities, the Court of Serious Crimes in Baku, Azerbaijan, has convicted journalist and economist Farid Mehralizada, along with six other journalists, on various charges of smuggling, illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, gang smuggling, and document forgery.

Their sentences ranged from seven and a half to nine years; all of the defendants have denied the charges, which they say are politically motivated.

Mehralizada, who received a nine-year sentence, had been reporting for RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, known locally as Azadliq Radiosu. He was arrested on May 30, 2024, when he was jumped by security agents who put a hood over his head and whispered in his ear, “You talk too much.” He had been held in detention for more than a year before finally reaching trial this week. [RFE/RL, June 20, 2025.]

In his final statement before the court, Mehralizada said that he understood “that the verdict you will read will not be the verdict of the judges, but of those who ordered our arrest. If they want, they can issue a life sentence for us, or even change the criminal code, restore the death penalty, and send us to execution. Because in countries where the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are not respected, judicial processes are nothing more than a fake smile from authoritarian governments.” [Id.]

His actual “crime”? Publishing economic analyses critical of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas policies, and questioning official statistics regarding poverty and unemployment. [Id.]

With more than 30 journalists and human rights activities having been arrested recently on similar charges, there is little question that Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has adopted his methods of governance from Vladimir Putin’s playbook. Of course, Azerbaijani authorities — like their Russian counterparts — maintain that each and every arrest is the result of criminal activity, and not politically motivated.

Farid Mehralizada and the others sentenced on June 20th — Ulvi Hasanli, Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai), Mahammad Kekalov, Hafiz Babali, Nargiz Absalamova, and Elnara Gasimova — are now to be added to our list, though they are outside of Russia. In the final analysis, they are all Putin’s Hostages.

*. *. *

And tragically, we have news of another Russian prisoner: a young woman named Nadezhda Rossinskaya, also known as Nadin Geisler, who was arrested for running a group called the “Army of Beauties” in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine during 2022-23, assisting some 25,000 people to flee to safety.

She was arrested in February of 2024, and later charged with treason and aiding “terrorist” activities by posting requests on Instagram for donations to Ukraine’s Azov Battalion. As previously reported, the Azov Battalion has been deemed a terrorist organization by the Russian government.

Geisler stated that she was not the author of the Instagram post, but was convicted anyway. Hers is the second-longest sentence handed down to a woman in modern Russian history. The longest was 27 years, issued to Darya Trepova, a Russian woman convicted last year of delivering a bomb that killed a pro-war blogger in 2023.

And so our list grows this week. I hate that.

*. *. *

Prisoners of War:

The People of Ukraine
The Azov 12

Political Prisoners:

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

David Barnes
Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus)
Gordon Black
Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus)
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman
Stephen James Hubbard
Sergey Karelin
Ihar Karney (in Belarus) on
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus)
Michael Travis Leake
Aleksei Liptser
Ihar Losik (in Belarus)
Mikita Losik (in Belarus)
Daniel Martindale
Farid Mehralizada (in Azerbaijan)
Nika Novak
Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Eugene Spector
Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus)
Siarhei Tsikhanouski (in Belarus)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland
Vladislav Yesypenko (in Crimea, Ukraine)
Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)

. . . and any others I may have missed.

You are not forgotten.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/25

And come to think of it, isn’t that an oxymoron?

Or perhaps, just a pair of actual morons.

One, allegedly in charge of overseeing the entirety of our national intelligence; the other, supposedly listening to the person he himself chose for the position; and neither of them knowing what the hell they’re doing.

Tulsi Gabbard — after testifying that, according to her information and analysis, Iran was not building nuclear weapons despite having a stockpile of materials — suddenly has an epiphany and declares that Iran could indeed have a nuclear weapon after all . . . and “within months.” She attributes the turn-around to her earlier statement having been taken out of context by “dishonest media.” [Sofia Ferreira Santos, BBC News, June 21, 2025.]

Right. When caught in a lie, blame the media. Classic Trump.

Who, not coincidentally, had just said publicly that Gabbard’s initial statement was “wrong.” [Id.]

Well, of course she had to be wrong. Because if she had been right originally, then he wouldn’t have an excuse now to attack Iran for failing to accede to his demands . . . would he?

So there she is, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of an 18-wheeler, with the boss making faces at her from just a few feet away. What’s she supposed to do . . . tell the truth?

Yeah . . . sure!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/25

No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump and Elon Musk; that’s yesterday’s news. This is another on-again-off-again alliance, one that has been bouncing back and forth for decades. I’m talking about the USSR/Russia and China . . . or, in more current and personal terms, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Formal diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and China were established as far back as 1949. But in the early 1980s, relations between the two countries were at a low point. The United States had been working toward improved trade relations with China since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s historic visit to Beijing in 1972, making Moscow unhappy; the Soviet Union was continuing its support for Vietnam, and had amassed troops along the Sino-Soviet border, seriously irritating Beijing. The two countries’ leaders were virulently distrustful of one another.

And the joke going around my office was that I had just prevented World War III.

My boss at the time was Walter Sterling Surrey, a Washington attorney whose international practice involved corporate clients doing business throughout the world, including China and the Soviet Union. He was, in the earlier part of his career with the U.S. Department of State, the chief legal draftsman of both the Marshall Plan and the NATO Treaty. He had also later worked with Nixon and Kissinger in reestablishing relations with China. He was well connected.

So it was natural that we would have contacts in numerous embassies to facilitate negotiations of commercial transactions on behalf of our clients. And one day, it happened that back-to-back meetings were scheduled in our office, the first with an economic officer from the Soviet Embassy, and the second with a delegation from China. And we had timed them so that they wouldn’t overlap.

But then Murphy’s Law took over . . . you know, the one that says if anything can go wrong, it will. The Russian visitor, who was meeting with Walter in his office, stayed longer than we had anticipated, and the Chinese group arrived early. I knew we couldn’t let them see each other, but there was no way the Russian could leave without passing through the lobby where the Chinese visitors were waiting.

That was when I went into my Keystone Kops routine. First I rang Walter’s phone and whispered to him that his next appointment had arrived early, and that he should keep the Russian gentleman talking until I gave him the all-clear signal.

Next, I called one of the firm’s partners who also worked with Walter on matters involving China, told him of the predicament, and asked him to greet the Chinese, take them into a conference room, and keep them behind closed doors until I could scoot the Russian out of the building.

When he had done that, I knocked on Walter’s door, stuck my head inside, and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re needed in the conference room.” The Russian diplomat took the hint, and I escorted him past the conference room, through the reception area, and into the elevator, while Walter went on to meet with the blissfully unsuspecting group waiting for him.

Crisis averted. Had their paths crossed, there would have been more than a little discomfort and embarrassment involved; it could have destroyed the trust our firm had built up over years with the embassies of both countries, and cost our clients millions of dollars in lost business opportunities . . . not to mention the possible loss of some of our firm’s biggest clients. Not literally World War III, of course; but to us and our clients, it would have felt like it.

*. *. *

Such was the state of Sino-Soviet relations in the early ‘80s. Since then, their governments have run hot-and-cold toward each other numerous times. And right now, in 2025, they’re mostly comfortably warm.

Together, Putin and Xi have aligned in an attempt to de-escalate the Israel-Iran conflict, and are calling for Trump to back off and not become involved on the side of Israel. In so doing, they are setting themselves out as the world’s foremost peacemakers, and as power brokers ready to step in where the U.S. has failed.

Ironically, the Kremlin has condemned Israel’s actions as a breach of the United Nations Charter and other standards of international law — typically ignoring Russia’s own ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which China steadfastly refuses to condemn. [Nectar Gan, CNN, June 20, 2025.]

Xi, on his part, has not specifically condemned Israel, but urged both Iran and Israel — “especially Israel” — to call a ceasefire as soon as possible. [Id.]

And in a message to Trump, Xi stressed that “major powers” having a special influence on the parties to the conflict should work to “cool the situation, not the opposite.” [Id.]

So they’re now on the same side of this issue, as well as being allied through their respective memberships in Russian-led BRICS and Russia’s participation in China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI). They have declared that their friendship has “no limits.” The two totalitarian leaders are, for all intents and purposes, best buddies.

But if that’s the case, then why — according to a New York Times report — has China been increasingly busy hacking Russian government agencies and companies since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine? [Firstpost.com, June 20, 2025.]

Last year, for example, a Taiwan-based cybersecurity research firm, TeamT5, established that a China-backed group was behind a cyberattack on a major Russian engineering firm, searching for information on nuclear submarines. [Id.]

Spying is said to be the world’s second oldest profession. (If you’re too young to know what the oldest one is, you should probably ask a parent.) And in today’s world, that means cyber-spying, as well as HUMINT (human intelligence). It’s business as usual.

We civilians, in our happy ignorance, tend to think of spying as existing between enemies — not allies. But nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1984, National Security Agency intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was arrested for selling classified defense information to America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East: Israel. He was convicted, spent the next 30 years in prison, and finally moved to Israel in 2020. Friend or no friend, Israel had no right to our classified information; but that didn’t stop them from wanting it, or finding a way to get their hands on it.

And so it goes. Since Moses sent his spies into Canaan, the world’s nations have been peering through one another’s curtains.

And “friendship” be damned.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/25