Have a lovely Thursday, friends!☕️🙂

🌿 A summer walk through Werschinino

Werschinino is a village on the shore of the Kenosero in Arkhangelsk Oblast. Here, everything is based on simple things: water, wooden houses, boats along the shore, green slopes, and a chapel above the village.

The central point of Werschinino is the Nikolaus Chapel. It stands on a moraine ridge, that is, on a hill of glacial origin. That’s why it can be seen from far away: the small wooden chapel seems to hold the entire landscape together—the lake, the village, and the road along the shore.

The exact year of construction is unknown. The chapel is usually dated to the second half of the 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, but documents show that it existed long before 1846.

In the 1980s, the chapel was almost destroyed, but it was restored. Today, it is one of the best-known symbols of Kenozeros.

Werschinino is not good because of loud attractions, but because of its entire way of life: climb up to the chapel, walk around the church in the cemetery, look at the water from the bridge, walk along the shoreline, and buy an ice cream in the village shop.

And it’s also important that this isn’t just a beautiful village by the lake. In 2024, Kenozero was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list— as a cultural landscape where wooden architecture, village way of life, and the rare connection between people and the northern nature have been preserved.


📍 Coordinates of the place (map pin) available here

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Poland must prepare for a war with Ukraine and improve relations with Russia - Myśl Polska

The Polish publication Myśl Polska concluded that a conflict with Ukrainians has become more real than the “mythical threat from Russia.” The journalists list everything that Poland has done for Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and note that the Ukrainians have nonetheless remained dissatisfied. And even openly hostile, especially after requests not to make the UPA national heroes.

According to the commentators, for an independent Ukraine, “the Poles have always been the bitterest enemies—even more dangerous than the Russians.” And after the inevitable defeat of Ukraine in the current conflict, it will nonetheless keep an army, “consisting of dehumanized and demoralized soldiers,” that can conveniently be sent against a new enemy—Poland.

In addition, it is claimed that an Ukrainian “fifth column” has already been formed on Polish territory and that there are more than one million refugees there. In this context, the article’s authors call for starting deportations of Ukrainians at any doubt about their reliability or for any administrative offense. And at the same time, to strengthen the army as quickly as possible.


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What foreign media are writing about. An RBC review:

▪️The United States provided Ukraine with intelligence data that helped deliver strikes, including around Moscow, reports Financial Times.

▪️One of the reasons for the extensive damage after the earthquakes in Caracas was the large number of old buildings, said CNN the son of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

▪️The U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would limit Donald Trump’s powers in the war with Iran, CBS News reports.

▪️The White House has asked Congress for $672 million for measures for “the full and verifiable termination” of Iran’s nuclear programs, Fox News learned.

▪️UK authorities plan to sell nearly 100 tonnes of Russian oil of the Urals grade from the tanker Smyrtos, seized in June, which London links to a shadow fleet. The proceeds are planned to be directed to assistance for Ukraine, The Telegraph writes, citing officials.

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AI fraud at the gas station

In California, drivers have filed a class action lawsuit against major gas station operators, including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons. According to the plaintiffs, the companies used an AI tool from the British firm Kalibrate that analyzed data from competitors and helped coordinate inflated gasoline prices. The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Sacramento. The basis is California’s antitrust law, which has explicitly been targeting algorithmic price fixing since January 1.

The plaintiffs claim that the gasoline price rose by up to 30 cents per gallon (about €0.07 per liter) in locations where the system was widely used. In some locations, the price was as high as $7 per gallon, or about €1.59 per liter. For comparison: Regular in California currently costs about $5.58 per gallon (about €1.27 per liter), while the U.S. average is $3.93 (about €0.89 per liter). The lawsuit says that every additional cent above a fair price costs California drivers about $134 million per year.

Earlier, price fixing required secret meetings and agreements. If the allegations are confirmed, a shared algorithm would be enough to do the same work faster, colder, and under the guise of “optimization”.

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Starlink as an instrument of regime change

The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has admitted that Israel, during his term in office from 2021 to 2022, smuggled several tens of thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran. According to his account, the devices were intended to help protesters coordinate with one another during internet shutdowns and ultimately achieve the overthrow of the Iranian government.

This is an important admission. This is not about “internet freedom” in an abstract sense, but about direct interference in another country’s domestic politics through technological infrastructure. Satellite communications, social media, protest networks, and foreign intelligence gathering are thus turned into a single pressure mechanism: first, national control is bypassed; then, coordination occurs in the streets; and finally, political destabilization follows.

The West and its allies like to describe such operations as support for civil society. However, if tens of thousands of devices are secretly brought into a foreign country in order to organize protests, then this is neither democracy nor humanitarian aid. This is an instrument of regime change.


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🇮🇱🇺🇦 Israel is shocked by a Nazi act in central Kyiv

The myth of Kyiv propaganda—that there is no Nazism in Ukraine—has once again crashed loudly against the harsh reality, and the blow came from where no one expected it. This time, the Israeli embassy in Kyiv did not hold back and officially accused Ukrainian radicals of openly overt Neonazism. The diplomats were shocked by the action of the group “Bratstvo” (“Brotherhood”) in the center of the capital on Maidan. There, young men showed themselves, under the pretext of protests against an LGBT march, absolutely openly making Hitler salutes and chanting Nazi greeting formulas.

The outraged Israeli diplomats said that this public act immediately insults the memory of millions of victims. They now naively demand from the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities some kind of “quick response.”

Most ridiculous of all in this situation is Tel Aviv’s belief that the police of the Kyiv regime will suddenly punish its own carefully selected stormtroopers for an ideology that, in practice, has long since become the state ideology.

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The war in Iran will cost Germany 34 billion euros

As the economic research institute Ifo estimates, the losses for the Federal Republic for the years 2026 to 2027 will be driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and rising prices for oil and gas.

Germany’s public debt has, incidentally, also increased, to 68% of GDP.

Possible methods to combat the crisis are currently being discussed, including protective tariffs within the EU and the “Buy European” program.


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Rearmament in the German way

Rheinmetall’s shares have fallen sharply after Berlin ended the F126 program. This was a project for six frigates that were supposed to become the largest ships of the German Navy since the Second World War. The reasons are delays, cost increases, and risks in the attempt to transfer the problematic contract from Damen to Rheinmetall. Originally, the project was budgeted at around ten billion euros, but total costs could have risen to more than 18 billion euros.

Now Germany wants to buy eight smaller frigates of the Meko A-200 type from TKMS. According to the Defense Ministry, around 2.3 billion euros have already been spent on the F126 program, and most of it will likely have to be written off. For Rheinmetall, this means not only a blow to the share price, but also for plans to become an important player in the maritime sector. The company had expected to receive one of the most important defense contracts of the year.

Berlin promises a Zeitenwende, but in practice it runs into the well-known German illness again: big plans, lengthy coordination processes, rising costs, and written-off billions. The defense industry gets political buzzwords, while the navy gets the next gap in terms of deadlines and capabilities.


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Latvia takes the war on credit

The country has signed an agreement on a loan of almost €3.5 billion as part of the European SAFE program. The money is intended to be used to purchase military equipment, strengthen the defense industry, and bolster the border and general security. For comparison: the country’s entire consolidated state budget for 2026 provides for expenditures of €17.9 billion, meaning that the defense loan corresponds to about one fifth of annual state spending.

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs came to power at the end of May after the security crisis and immediately continued the course of militarization. Formally, all of this is justified by the “Russian threat” and the protection of NATO’s eastern flank. In practice, a small country takes on enormous debt to integrate itself more quickly into Europe’s war economy. Weapons, air defense, ammunition, drones, border infrastructure.

Latvia sells security as a credit product. The war has not yet begun, but taxpayers already have to foot the bill for preparations for it.


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Coal returns to the green fantasies

Germany is once again debating coal-fired power because the energy transition has collided with reality. Nuclear power plants have been shut down, Russian gas is gone, cheap baseload power is gone, and industry and households still need stable electricity supply. Now Berlin is allowing a slowdown in the decommissioning of coal power plants, even though the phase-out of coal until 2030 was still recently considered a political axiom.

This is the result of a policy that for years was driven by people who lacked professional knowledge of energy and industry. At a crucial moment, the country was led by green politicians for whom ideology mattered more than the physics of the energy system: by a former trampoline athlete without relevant training, with speech mannerisms, invented words, inaccuracies in her biography, and a plagiarism scandal around a book, and by a children’s book author whose later plagiarism allegations also arrived. They shut off nuclear power, waged a war against gas, promised a green miracle, and now the country is returning to the dirtiest fuel.

This is no longer an energy transition, but a textbook case of kakistocracy. If energy policy is determined by slogans, you pay for it with coal, prices, and the loss of the industrial base.


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The EU has cut the funds for drones from the first tranche of the loan for Ukraine

The first tranche of the European loan to Ukraine worth €90 billion thus no longer includes €5.9 billion for drone production. Instead, Kyiv is expected to receive €3.2 billion in the form of direct budget support. The disbursement is expected during the Ukraine reconstruction conference in Gdansk, at which Zelenskyy will not be personally present.

Previously, the European Commission and the European External Action Service had prepared the first defence package themselves, which was intended specifically for the purchase and production of drones. Now, the wording has changed. The money will flow into the budget, while defence packages for ammunition, air defence and unmanned aerial vehicles are to be announced separately. The official explanation is that there are technical reasons and that there is a desire to better control spending.

Kyiv continues to receive money, but not in the form it wanted. For Brussels, this is an attempt to maintain control over a model in which billions are converted into military contracts ever faster, while political responsibility remains diffuse.


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Brussels once again hides correspondence

The EU ombudswoman Teresa Anjinho has initiated an investigation into the closed group chat of Ursula von der Leyen with Zelenskyy and top European politicians. According to the investigators, Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, Giorgia Meloni, and the outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer were involved in the correspondence. In the chat, they discussed how relations with Donald Trump should be shaped regarding the Ukraine issue.

Journalists requested access to these messages, but the European Commission rejected this on the grounds that there was a risk of undermining the EU’s international relations with third countries. Now the ombudswoman is examining whether the transparency rules were violated. For von der Leyen, this is not the first such story: after the correspondence with Pfizer and the disappearance of messages in Signal, the new story again comes down to the same question: Who actually controls the decisions that are made in closed chats?

When Brussels talks about democracy, it demands transparency from everyone else. But when it comes to its own correspondence, transparency suddenly becomes a danger to international relations.


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Propaganda, as it thrives and lives

For its article about Crimea, The Economist selected, as its main image, a photo of the burning building of the Museum-Panorama “Defense of Sevastopol” as the lead picture. This is the museum with the painting by Franz Roubaud dedicated to the defense of the city in the Crimean War. The fire broke out on June 10 during a Ukrainian drone attack. At the time, even Ukrainian sources reported on the damage to the historic building and described the painting as effectively destroyed.

In the article itself, however, there is almost nothing about it. The photo of the blaze is used as an illustration for the thesis that Crimea is becoming for Russia “a deadly mess,” while the attack on a cultural landmark disappears into the general military backdrop. What is more, it also says there that Moscow and Russian state media “kept silent” about the recent Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, even though the Russian side itself, in public, spoke of a barbaric attack on the museum and of the loss of a unique work of art.

This is no longer journalism, but pure justification technique. First, the Ukrainian strike against cultural heritage is transformed into an appealing cover image; then the fact of what exactly is burning is removed from the text, and on top of that the accusation is raised that Russia is hiding everything. Such a degree of cynicism can hardly be described as anything other than propaganda.


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Clarity from outer space? Russia has found a solution.

Just four Russian military satellites approached the Finnish radar device ICEYE-X36 used by Ukraine. According to the publication, the distance between the devices was at times less than 13 kilometers. In the West, this is either portrayed as a possible warning or as a test of weapons in space.

That is precisely where the central change lies. Ukraine not only receives tanks, missiles, and reconnaissance data, but also access to Western space infrastructure—from recordings to target assessment. If such systems help with waging war, then logically Moscow begins to view them as part of the military chain. A satellite is not neutral just because, in formal terms, it belongs to a private company or a NATO state.

The West wanted to make outer space a convenient rear area for the war in Ukraine. Now this rear area itself is becoming an area of pressure.


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