Dear Readers:
First a quick note from the battlefield: I am reading in Rybar this morning that the Russians (Wagnerites) have taken the town of Kleshcheevka:
This is really good news for the Russian side, as helps to close the ring around Bakhmut/Artyomovsk. Recall that Zelensky has ordered Ukrainian soldiers to fight to the death for Bakhmut, and never allowed to retreat one meter.
Personnel Changes
Meanwhile, we have some news from the Ukrainian political front. A horrible helicopter accident occurred yesterday, January 18. Surprisingly, the Ukrainians don’t appear to be blaming this one on the Russians, it appears to be just one of those things, a random accident, caused by engine failure. (Although the SBU say they are carrying out an investigation to determine if the cause was sabotage.) The horrible thing is that the Ukrainian military helicopter crashed right down into a kindergarten near the town of Brovary (in the Kiev region). Eighteen people were confirmed dead, including 3 children; with others wounded and the death toll rising.
Now the gossipy part: The doomed helicopter contained a Ukrainian government official named Denis Monastyrsky, the head of Internal Affairs. He was a member of Zelensky’s political party. His recently updated wiki describes his death:
Death[edit]
Monastyrsky, along with his deputy Yevhen Yenin, and Secretary of State of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Lubkovych, were killed in a helicopter crash on 18 January 2023 in Brovary, an eastern suburb of the capital Kyiv. The helicopter hit a kindergarten as it crashed, and a child was among the 14 killed. At least 25 others were injured.
Monastyrsky’s death has created a gap in the Ukrainian power structure. His direct Deputy Evgeny Enin was in the helicopter with him, and also perished. The Ukrainian cabinet immediately appointed a man named Igor Klimenko as his acting successor. Klimenko is currently Chief of the National Police, and reports seem to indicate that he will not get the job on a permanent basis, he is just holding the seat for now, while the big boys duke it out for the juicy post.
Reporter Alyona Zadorozhnaya cites Ukrainian pundit Larisa Shesler, who explains the opportunities opened up by this tragic accident.
According to Shesler, there are several different “clans” operating within Ukrainian politics; all of whom would love to secure the Internal Ministry for their own person.
She reminds that Monastyrsky replaced Arsen Avakov, the man who had turned the Internal Ministry post into a powerful political engine for the Nationalists and a core component of the war effort. Shesler: “It is remarkable that, to this day, Avakov has not lost his influence. […] However, as a counter-weight, I predict that we will see the military block step forward, represented by some of Zaluzhny’s people.
“We should also not make the mistake of assuming, that, in light of Arestovich’s resignation and Monastyrsky’s death, we would see the weakening of Andrei Yermak’s influence on the internal Ukrainian processes. Yermak has the support of London and Washington, therefore his fall would only come about if he lost their confidence.
“In conclusion, no matter how ferocious becomes the war of the clans, in the end they will all have to deal with Yermak. And I can tell you straight out that Yermak would not be pleased with any new person joining the game, who strengthens the position of Zaluzhny.”
Awful Avalanche 
Another conspiracy theory discussed by Larry.
Frankly it is all peanuts compared to the Biden House with top secret documents in it being rented for half a million dollars a year from him by his son while he was collecting millions for representing the Chinese spy master.
Washington makes Kiev sound sane and clean.
https://sonar21.com/are-the-ukrainian-political-elite-starting-to-eat-each-other/
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Très intéressant! According to this theory, that little fascist Budanov capped a rival Mafia boss?
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P.S. – as far as Arestovich is concerned, I think Alexei really needs to get the hell out of Dodge. For several months now, he has been straying a little bit from the reservation (for example, he spoke Russian instead of Ukrainian, he put forth the idea of Kievan Rus as a counter to the Galician ideology, he defended the Orthodox Church, he told the truth about Soledar and Dnipro), the only thing keeping him alive was Yermak’s krysha, and now he has lost that.
Not to mention that he made it clear he was a candidate for the Presidency and wanted Zelensky’s job. Zelensky won’t let that pass. Lusya is toast.
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Arestovich is a highly intelligent character, not the buffoon so many pro Russian people dismiss him as. He can see where things are heading and is getting off the sinking ship while there are still lifeboats available.
By the way, the nazi Peacemaker site not only put him on its hitlist but refers to him as Alexei Nikolayevich Arestovich, a ruZZian orc name. Until the other day he was Oleksii Mikolaevich like a pure blooded Ukrainian superman.
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Agreed, there are many layers of depth to this character. He is not a buffoon at all. Actually, here is an interesting link about his biography, it was posted by that same joker fellow at Larry’s blog. I have read the original at some point (in Russian), and this link is a dreadful google-translate, but it’s good enough to impart at least some of the complexity of his public persona.
A key point is that Alexei has always been completely and openly contemptuous of Ukrainian Nationalists, and even Ukrainians in general. So the mystery is why he picked this side of the war. He had rejected the earlier Orange Revolution, but then signed up for the much more extreme Maidan in 2014. Best guess is, he wants to place his bets on NATO, not so much on Ukraine per se. Plus, they say that he is ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault.
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Arestovych did a lot more than tell an accidental truth and resign.
This time he really jumped the shark and told of the whole systematic bullying of half of Ukraine and explained that of course it back fires on the,
Very well worth listening to:
Arestovich (Zelensky’s advisor) condemns Zelensky for war against ethnic Russians & Christianity
Hats off to Glen Diesen, and this reminds me of the “Fuck the EU” Nuland quote, where the whole of the western media concentrated on the irrelevant part of the leak instead of highlighting her attempt to appoint the Ukrainian prime minister.
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Thanks for that link. I had not watched that interview, so I will.
It is interesting that Arestovich has a degree Theology (along with Psychology) and I heard that he studied with the Dominican order. Which makes him a Roman Catholic, I would reckon. Despite his astronomical IQ, this boy is not meant for this world and has no clue how to approach the real world of material objects. He is basically a non-violent narcissist and spoiled brat (=youngest son in the family, adored by his older brother and sister, you know the drill…)
Against my better judgement, I may do one more post about him (not tomorrow, though), after watching his interview with Ukrainian historian Romanenko. Who has also given up on the Ukrainian project, by the way.
Now that he has abandoned his “Baghdad Bob” shtick, Alexei is coming out as a dyed-in-the-wood idealist (in the philosophical sense, like Bishop Berkeley). In other words, he believes in “mind over matter”, and he was even uttering some nonsense about chakras. He don’t believe any more that Ukraine can win the war. But is that because they ran out of bullets? No, it’s because they have bad karma after the Poroshenko team turned all the “haters” against Arestovich. According to him, they are operating out of their “lower chakra”, and this is why they will fail. Not understanding mystical thinking, I don’t even know what a chakra is in general, let alone a lower one. Unless it’s that ill-smelling hole from which certain people blow smoke…”
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According to Angela Merkel, these Ucronazis have been at the service of the West since 2014 and no one believes they do it for more than money, nor should anyone mourn them because each death is an opportunity for others who are waiting their turn for a bigger slice of the cake that they are given from West..
Besides, everything can be an internal cleaning after the incident of the idiot adviser who destroyed a media operation against Russia for speaking what he shouldn’t, who must have already been sent to meet with his ancestors.
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There are some theories about the helicopter. 1 a genuine accident. But improbable as it varies several officials. 2 an anti aircraft missiles striking it (i guess a way to mock them by pro russian bloggers but doesn’t sound so real at this point). 3 the intended sabotage of the helicopter by one rival clan as the minister is a transit place of billions of money from the west. And some people wanted a bigger share apparently, probably the zaluzhny clan.
Zelenski is becoming more and more hated and he has little chance to become a legitimate candidate. Zaluzhny is tempted as in any paramilitary society where the strong man has the favors of the ladies and voters.
Lusya is highly popular in the east and highly impopular in the west of Ukraine. I used to have a friend, not just an acquaintance. Ukrainian speaking Russian who now hates anything russian, even the letter ы that gives him rashes on his buttcheeks, and he loves lusya as the “most lucid” man in the circle of power. He even had a selfie with him (and guess what arestovich had a sweater with his name on him lol). And I noticed kharkovians in general find him really great.
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Thanks, Sacha, for dishing out some extremely interesting gossip!
Okay, as to the helicopter, I have a read a lot of theories. I have no idea of course, but I trend to thinking that it was a legitimate accident. That’s the simplest explanation. Well, some people say: “Why would they allow 3 such important officials to all travel together, that goes against all protocols?” and a plausible explanation is that (a) they all needed to be in the same place (for whatever reason), and (b) they couldn’t afford to take separate helicopters because, frankly, Ukraine is running out of helicopters!
Other people ask, “Why was it flying so low?” And the obvious answer is: To avoid being shot down. And corollary being, it was flying too low and got entangled in power lines. That’s the theory I am going with, until somebody has better factual info.
Now, as to Lusya: I am reading the same sorts of things, namely that his “natural” constituency are those people who used to vote Party of the Regions yet did not go over all the way to becoming Separatists. Among the “patriotic” electorate, Lusya has a natural constituency of people who speak Russian, worship in Russian Orthodox Church, and don’t buy into the extremist Galician B.S. Due to his skills in psychological manipulation and hypnosis, Alexei is also regarded as a possible “healer” of the traumatized Ukrainian peasantry. If he plans to run for President (which he says he wants to), then he will collect votes from among the psychologically damaged. Under a Russian regentship, he could be a good compromise candidate.
Unfortunately, none of these things are likely to happen, because the low-IQNationalists are too violent and will not allow it. I think they will try to kill him, and he won’t be able to defend himself, because he is too much the intellectual and doesn’t have a militia of thugs to back him up. He is a slippery eel, but that only goes so far, until it comes up against the brick wall of the naked machine gun. It is also dubious that the Westies will back him against Zelensky, because they tend to go for the ultra-violent types, and Lusya is not that type. Just like Otto, in “A Fish Called Wanda”, he reads books about philosophy.
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In the end in this shitland that has become 404, it’s all about who has the bigger patron. I guess that’s his weakness. Even banderists wouldn’t touch him if the boss in town said so. He publicly said in 2019 that a ticket nato and Europe was a winning war against Russia. Saying it that boldly means he had some backers. Maybe he just will play the role of a political fake opposition to Z or any candidate chosen by Washington like Klitschko who was used by Nuland before being assigned to Kiev.
By the way I happened to come a cross a true banderite on instagram who calls bandera our hero and managed to lie too much about russian history that he was banned from a geography dedicated page. The most interesting is how they want to reject the word Ukrainian to be called Rusyn. Claiming an exclusive connection to the ancient rus. And denying the real Rusyn (hutul and lemko) their name and calling them separatists for not accepting to join in the big celebration of racial purity. What did I conclude? That this ideology will remain as a plague and will never be eliminated. Even the soviet didn’t manage to get rid of them, they just put the issue under the lid.
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Sacha, I had vaguely heard about this “Rusyn” thing, I don’t know if that is recent or not. Returning to the topic of Arestovich, he is currently promoting something similar (or maybe not, I don’t know all the details, because it’s all B.S. of course) which he calls his “South Russia project”. Apparently his ideological-spiritual goal is to recreate the Polish Rzech Pospolita, in union with Lithuania and “Ukrainians” aka “southern Russians”. As a counter-balance to Putin’s “resurrected Russian Empire”.
Sure sounds like a viable plan. Not…
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If a hit, they made a pretty job messy job of it…kinda reminds me when that 3L-Agency helped blow-up a Cuban airliner…talk about messy ! 78 souls snuffed out, but I guess, it’s kind of a signature trademark and…I am sure it was worth it !
Kinda like how CIA agent Mrs Hunt [then working for Nixon] met her end. Consider, a pilot with 18,000 hrs “forgot” to retract the spoilers on a go around and just “coincidentally”, the cockpit recorder was not working that day…nothing to shed light on what/when the pilot actually did…just the wreckage and the wreckage said they were deployed. Who else would deploy/keep-deployed spoilers? Spoilers are only used to destroy the wings ability to provide lift…nobody could/would possibly rig an aircraft to receive an radio signal in close proximity to a pre-ordained destination? It’s just pure coincidence that a very convenient public death* helped remove a US president
And then there’s Senator Wellstone’s plane crash due to icing in clear air, his death cleared the way for Bush to have a Republican Senate and a bloody war…and so it goes.
*Within hours, news of the contents of Mrs. Hunts handbag were public knowledge because agents from a domestic 3LA “just happened” to be “close by and available” to search the wreckage before the cops arrived to secure the scene. Nobody then, or now thinks it odd that two agents who “just happened” to be there and “just happened” to search the personal belongings of one corpse of the 43 available. Imagine, two well dressed guys, immediately on the scene, going through a dead lady’s purse…just imagine that.
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My question would be [from a safety/security pov]; who put these 3 guys in 1 chopper?
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One commenter on the blogosphere said it would be the equivalent of putting the FBI Director, his assistant, and the Attorney General of the United States all in the same chopper. In other words, it completely went against protocol.
Having said that, I can see a lot of reasons why it would happen, especially in the Ukraine, including (a) good old-fashioned Russian khalatnost, i.e., carelessness, same people people don’t fasten their seatbelts in the car (“Nothing will happen to me”). (b) Maybe they were all drinking and partying as well, and didn’t want to take separate copters.
Another, even better theory: Ukraine is simply running out of helicopters! Given that Russia already shot most of them down.
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@ yalensis,
I didn’t even think of option 3/C. I guess that could be the reason.
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It’s the most plausible one, I think.
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Come on! If you’re going to have a gossip post, you should have a mention in the above-the-fold part about the conspiracy theory put forth by someone who posts with “Joker” in his nym. Which was cited in Larry Johnson’s post. SAMmed down to cover something up. It passes the “logic test” for me.
I have commented before, only partly in jest, that in a nest of Nazis, the snakes will start eating their own tail eventually. It COULD have been to eliminate greedos who were wanting a cut of the profits from selling NATO weapons, or to silence people who knew too much and might begin blabbing. My theory (before I knew that they came down in a kindergarten)was that it was THEIR kids on board the chopper and they were trying to fly out of the country with their families before they could be assassinated. If Yermak was involved, any evil thing could happen. Was he at the conference of people who secretly run the world in Davos? I saw a Ukrainian Yermak mentioned there, but I think the first name was Vasily. If the scary monster Yermak attended, he might have been doing a job interview for Thuggish Enforcer when Klaus Schwab or some other super-villian sets up their lair on Snake Island.
Continuing in the farcical vein, I am glad to have been reading your blog for a few months, because I already knew who Arestovich was when news of his defenestration (sadly, not literally) hit the wires. Never had seen much mention of the mesmerising fellow before, aside from you, but when he got the toss, Lusya was mentioned on i(heart)EarlGrey and several other Russosphere sites. But not a one of ’em mentioned Arestovich’s Greatest Tit (sic) in the movie field, and they certainly didn’t have any fetching picture of him. Have you reached out to the Candy Girl to do some guest posts for A.A. if you need to take some time off your torrid pace of posting?
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Bukko, I pride myself on “discovering” Arestovich before he was a thing. I’ve had my eye on that wench for a long time, and not just because of his enticing bodice! If he manages to survive the next few months, he might well go on to be the next Prez of Ukraine. In which case, I will demand an exclusive interview with the Candy Girl. I promise! [yeah, right!]
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Well, Arestovich might have a lot of time on his hands for writing, if he’s hiding out with no salaried job duties. Or being kept captive by SBU Nazis the way Gonzalo Lira was for a few weeks last year. Why wouldn’t he want to do guest posts for you?!? You must be one of his biggest publicisers, aside from odioFeigin, and you’re certainly Lusya’s #1 booster in the American blogosphere. Send him a few of your posts where he was the main attraction. They have such purty pictures of him, especially the movie stills. That’s like candy (or cocaine) to a narcissist. He’ll luv ya once he gets to know ya!
On a less-risible note, if you’re having a hard time choosing a subject to post about (I know, not likely when there’s an entire war and the collapse of a nation of millions going on) you could write an entry pretending to be Arestovich. You’ve listened to him enough on Feigin’s show and you have certainly developed opinions about his hypnotic abilities. I’m sure you could channel his sweet, soft caramel centre. Creative Writing 101. The more you think about it, the more you’re gonna wanna do it… (written in my best Svengali subliminal suggestability tone)
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You would think that Arestovich would have more time on his hands, but no. I checked out youtube last night, and that narcissist is still everywhere, all over the internet. Still working with Latynina and with the odious Feigin, the title of their show last night was “The West will guide us to victory”, with lots of drooling about all the tanks and stuff coming their way. These people are a true cargo cult.
Also, people may not be aware, but Arestovich never got paid for his work in te government anyhow. He was basically a volunteer. He was specifically an “unpaid advisor” to Yermak/Podolyak, which means they just kept him on for charity purposes, but never paid him a salary. Apparently the guy makes his real money from his “psychological seminars” which are a lot of hooey, basically motivational speaking, in essence. However, it goes without saying that his brand name and cache were boosted by his pretensions of being part of the inner circle in power. People would flock to his seminars because the hoi polloi will flock to anybody who appears to have soome power. He doesn’t have that any more, so we shall just see how he does as a private citizen.
I think I have finally figured him out: He has no loyalty to Ukraine, but he is Western-minded and wants Zelensky’s spot as the Western puppet. However, he will not be able to achieve this, because (a) he doesn’t have his own political party, and (b) Washington won’t trust him, and (c) he is not ruthless or violent enough to do what has to be done. He would be like weak-minded Fredo going up against Michael Corleone.
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