Alexander Ovechkin has been a fixture on the Washington Capitals National Hockey League (NHL) team for over 20 years. On April 6, 2025, Ovechkin became the leading goal scorer in NHL history. Last summer, Ovechkin appeared in a political ad for the United Russia Party, Putin’s political party, alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey …

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It has been a while since I last published. My apologies to my subscribers, especially my paying subscribers. I’ll do better.

Yesterday, the representatives of President Trump, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, visited Kyiv. After 8 visits to Moscow, it was their first visit to Kyiv. Under the circumstances, President Zelenskyy appeared t…

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Through Russia’s systematic and continual attacks on Ukraine’s cultural identity, including its religious traditions, Russia is the aggressor in both wars.

There is a reason why Russian drones and missiles have fallen on churches throughout Ukraine, most recently the Dormition Cathedral (also known as the Cathedral of the Assumption), on th…

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There has not been a presidential election in Ukraine since 2019, so how is it possible that democratic values in Ukraine are “alive and well?”

Anyone who is following the demonstrations now taking place in Ukrainian cities in the wake of President Zelenskyy’s dismissal of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, and last year’s demonstrati…

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Like most other people, I was very disappointed by the decision of President Zelenskyy to ask for the resignation of Defense Minister Mykhailo Federov. However, in retrospect, I was not surprised that it happened. The removal of reformist ministers has been a staple of Ukraine’s political scene, likely since before I first came to Ukraine i…

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Since the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation, now referred to by Russia as a war, Ukraine has built from scratch the means for a new way of taking the war to Russia, the drone, including the equipment, the organization, means of production, training, procurement, and deployment. Ukraine has accomplished this feat while they are fi…

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The title of this post is derived from a 1965 remark by golf legend Bobby Jones, after he watched Jack Nicklaus win the Masters Golf Tournament by 9 shots, and repeated in 1997 by Nicklaus himself, after watching Tiger Woods win the Masters by 12 shots.

Perhaps the Russian leadership could truthfully say the same about Ukraine, as Ukraine tie…

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Kira Rudik is a Member of the Verhovna Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament, and the leader of the Holos Party.

Before entering politics, Kira Rudik was a tech entrepreneur. She was the CEO of Ring Ukraine, part of an American company called Ring, a smart home and home security company. Ring Ukraine specialized in computer vision, artificial intellige…

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Jillian Kay Melchor, in her Op-Ed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, stated, “Vladimir Putin has been making the case that Russia’s battlefield advances are unstoppable, and the outnumbered Ukrainians can’t win a war of attrition. It follows that Kyiv should settle before things get worse, even if it means surrendering the Crimea, Donetsk,…

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As discussed in previous posts, the Kinburn Spit is a phallus-shaped point of land whose base is in Kherson Oblast, but most of the Spit, including the end, lies in Mykolaiv Oblast. A map of the Kinburn Spit is shown here, due south of Mykolaiv.

The Kinburn Spit is temporarily occupied by Russia. As long as Russia controls the Kinburn Spit, the ports of Mykolaiv and Kherson are unusable for Ukraine. Both ports contain major grain export terminals. Mykolaiv contains Ukraine’s largest facility for shipbuilding and ship repair.

There have been reports that Russia has conducted a partial withdrawal of the Spit, due to difficulties keeping the Russian occupiers supplied with food, water, and ammunition. There have also been reports of Russian occupiers suffering from a lack of food, water, and ammunition throughout the entire portion of Kherson Oblast temporarily occupied by Russia, running from the Kinburn Spit east to the Armiansk Entrance to Crimea.

Forcing the Russians off the Kinburn Spit and continuing to degrade Russian positions in the Western portion of the temporarily occupied Kherson Oblast will have the following benefits for Ukraine:

· Re-opening the Port of Mykolaiv.

· Clearing Russian troops off the islands in the Dnipro River Delta, allowing the Port of Kherson to fully reopen.

· Opening the Armiansk entrance to Crimea.

There have been previous reports of Ukraine mounting an offensive to the south, from Zaporizhzhia toward Tokmak and Melitopol. This may be an extension of Ukraine blunting a recent Russian offensive, initiated early last Spring toward Zaporizhzhia City, designed to put Zaporizhzhia City in Russian artillery range. Lately, Ukraine has been very quiet about this sector, with most of the news focused on fighting around the Donbas Fortress Belt.

Because of its strategic significance, the Kinburn Spit has been an object of conflict for close to 250 years, including:

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Much of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation rests on two big lies, both of which they have been able to perpetuate for decades.

The Two Big Lies are:

1. That the Russian Federation is a thoroughly Christian nation, with a mission to protect Christian values and morality throughout the World from the moral decay and woke deviousness of the West.

2. That the Russian Federation supports anti-colonialism, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, because Russia has never been a colonizer itself.

Let’s consider each of the Two Big Lies in turn:

Big Lie No. 1 - That the Russian Federation is a thoroughly Christian nation, with a mission to protect Christian values and morality throughout the World, from the moral decay and woke deviousness of the West.

Consider the facts:

Church Attendance in Russia vs. Ukraine

Russia:

· Standard weekly or monthly church attendance in Russia consistently hovers in the single digits (around 7% to 8%).

· Even during major holidays like Orthodox Christmas or Easter, official police turnout data in cities like Moscow rarely show more than 1% to 2% of the population attending services.

· For the vast majority of Russians, being “Orthodox” is synonymous with being ethnically Russian, representing a geopolitical and cultural identity rather than a personal, practicing faith. (Pew Research Center)

· In Russia, the religious market is entirely monopolized by the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), which operates closely as an arm of the state. Sociologists of religion note that state-dominated religious monopolies often breed public passivity or indifference.

Ukraine:

• Before the current war, regular church attendance tracked between 30% and 37%, with newer data showing that even amidst severe wartime displacement, roughly 24% of Ukrainians still attend services at least once a month.

• Over 70% of Ukrainians explicitly describe themselves as active “believers,” compared to just over half of Russians.

• In Ukraine, there has historically been a vibrant, highly competitive religious pluralism. For decades, multiple Orthodox bodies (the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Moscow Patriarchate), a large Greek Catholic population, and the fastest-growing Protestant community in Eastern Europe vied for adherents. This competition naturally forced churches to be more active, community-oriented, and responsive to the public, driving higher engagement and attendance.

If there is any country that is supporting Christian values and Western morality, it is Ukraine, not Russia.

Church Leadership (Russia vs. Ukraine)

Russia:

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) is an appendage of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, in turn, is an organ of the Russian State. Since January 2009, UOC-MP has been led by Kirill (Vladimir Gundyaev), Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

Kirill was elected by what is known as the “Local Council,” consisting of 702 delegates from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and several foreign diasporas. The delegates met inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The final vote gave Kirill, who had the backing of the Kremlin, 75%.

Ukraine:

The leader of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was unique because OCU was first established in 2018 as a means of achieving spiritual autonomy from Moscow. The leader is Metropolitan Epiphanius (Dumenko).

Epiphanius was elected on December 15, 2018, by a special Unification Council convened at St. Sophia’s Cathedral under the spiritual leadership of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. Unlike the election of Patriarch Kirill, the vote was close, with Metropolitan Epiphanius receiving 36 votes to Metropolitan Simeon’s 28.

A few weeks later, on January 5, 2019, Epiphanius travelled to Istanbul, where Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew officially signed and handed him the Tomos of Autocephaly—the formal decree granting the Orthodox Church of Ukraine its recognized, self-governing independence, and equal in status to UOC-MP.

The UOC-MP has appeared to embrace the Russian tradition of rigged elections with a veneer of legitimacy, whereas the OCU follows the traditional Orthodox procedures of open elections to the letter.

In Ukraine, many OCU parishes actively support territorial defense units. OCU priests routinely go to the Front to minister to members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In Lv’iv, the St. Peter & Paul Garrison Church is considered a sanctuary of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.

Russian Religious Persecution in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation has carried out a systematic and aggressive campaign of religious persecution in the occupied territories (including the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, as well as Crimea). In many cases, the persecution has been overseen and blessed by the UOC-MP and its Patriarch Kirill.

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Washington, D.C., near where I live, is a very large echo chamber. There isn’t a high premium on being a contrarian. I think people used to feel sorry for me. On the first day of Russia’s special military operation, after talking to colleagues in Kyiv, including a drone operator, I predicted that Ukraine would win. Most everyone else concluded that Ukraine would surrender in 5 days. They don’t know who Ukrainians are.

The following subsequent events reinforced the predictions of the experts and pundits that Ukraine’s eventual demise is inevitable, but it didn’t change my prediction:

· First, 4 years ago, all the Washington, D.C. experts and pundits nodded and said, “Ukraine Will Surrender in 5 days.”

· Second, Russia's overwhelming artillery predominance. By mid 2022 the Russians were firing 10 rounds of 152/155 mm ammunition at both Ukrainian positions and civilians, for every Ukrainian round fired at Russian positions. Ukraine cannot take this much longer, they said; eventually, this will force Ukraine to the negotiating table. Then, the FPV drones appeared.

· Third, the 2023 Ukrainian summer offensive failed. Along with the fall of Bakhmut in May 2023, these twin reversals will surely drive Ukraine to the negotiating table.

· Fourth, the fall of Avdiivka on February 19, 2024, was a critical defeat for Ukraine. Polish the negotiating table.

· Fifth, the Russians introduced the tactic of small group infiltrations, mostly using conscripts who were considered expendable, eventually leading to Russia occupying much of the City of Pokrovsk. Never mind that this strategy cost Russia thousands of dead and wounded. There were more where they came from, the experts and pundits said; one retired U.S. Army general concluded, Ukraine will eventually “bleed out.”

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In the last couple of days, Ukraine has taken down the Chongar Bridge, the shortest of the 2 overland routes that connect Crimea with the Ukrainian mainland, the other being the Armiansk Causeway south of Kherson City. The Kerch Bridge, while still intact, is likely, according to an underwater demolition expert to whom I listen, to operate at 30 – 50% capacity due to damage to one of the support columns resulting from a Ukrainian strike last year. There is one ferry still operating between Crimea and the Russian mainland, with three other ferries having been sunk by the Ukrainians. The wait time for the remaining ferry is 5 days. Despite Ukraine having no navy, Russia lacks the capability to resupply Crimea by sea. Most of Russia’s amphibious ships either lie at the bottom of the Black Sea or lie broken in dry docks and piers in Sevastopol and Novorossiya. Russia has been left with very limited anti-aircraft capability in Crimea, because much of it has been destroyed by Ukraine.

The effective blockade of Crimea has led me to revisit the possibility of a Ukrainian offensive to the south, either southeast across the Dnipro River, or due south from Orikhiv and toward Tokmak and Melitopol, or perhaps both (please see the link to the map in the following paragraph). The objectives, including the Armiansk Causeway to Crimea, liberating the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, re-opening the ports of Kherson and Mykolaiv by clearing out Russian troops occupying the Kinburn Spit and the Dnipro Delta are all very tempting. The blockade of Crimea may be changing Ukraine’s calculus that applies to Western Zaporizhzhia and occupied Kherson Oblasts, making a Ukrainian offensive there more likely.

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Borodino is a town in Russia that is located approximately 125 km (approximately 80 mi.) west of the Kremlin. While it might not have appeared so at the time, Borodino was the site of the ultimate defeat of the French Army under Napoleon I in September 1812, and the German Army in February 1942, by Imperial Russia and the former Soviet Union…

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Ukraine’s defense leadership is being transformed into an organization that is being driven by the “Digital Generation,” mostly younger men and women with the ability to look at problems from a different perspective than their predecessors. Enter Mikhailo Fedorov, age 35, as Ukraine’s new Defense Minister.

What is a “Logistics Lockdown?”

“Logistics Lockdown” is not the name of the latest punk rock band, although the alliterative term might confuse one into believing this.

Instead, according to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (MOD), “Logistics Lockdown” will “systematically destroy russian logistics, warehouses, equipment, command posts, and supply routes at operational depth.” NOTE: The use of the lower case to refer to “russian” comes directly from MOD’s website.

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