💬 Из стенограммы брифинга официального представителя МИД России М.В.Захаровой, Москва, 18 декабря 2025 г.

О сносе памятника в честь погибших советских и польских воинов в Польше

❗️В Польше продолжается война с нашим мемориальным наследием. 10 декабря с.г. в г. Машево по решению польских властей был снесен обелиск в память погибших во время Второй мировой войны советских и польских воинов, установленный 9 мая 1947 г. на площади перед мэрией города. Ранее с памятника исчезли пятиконечная звезда и надпись «Слава освободителям».

Как это стало принято в Польше, позорному действу постарались придать максимальную торжественность и «воспитательную функцию». Демонтажу предшествовала пресс-конференция. Она транслировалась Институтом национальной памяти – органом, ответственным за нынешнюю «историческую политику» Польши, который выступил инициатором ликвидации нашего мемориального наследия. Участники этого мероприятия заявляли, что «в свободной Польше нет места для подобного рода объектов» и призывали органы местного самоуправления смелее от них избавляться. То, что эти памятники устанавливались самими поляками в день, связанный с окончанием Второй мировой войны в Европе, их не волнует.

В попытках переписать историю, вычеркнув из нее «лишние» страницы, в Польше не останавливаются и перед тем, чтобы, как в этом случае, вместе с именами воинов Красной Армии стереть из памяти собственного народа и имена польских борцов с нацизмом.

Естественно, не вспоминает Варшава и о тех соглашениях между нашими странами, в соответствии с которыми она приняла на себя обязательства сохранять места захоронений и памяти жертв войн и репрессий. Исключение из этого правила поляки делают только тогда, когда предъявляют российской стороне претензии относительно демонтажа какого-либо незаконно установленного польского мемориального объекта в России. Тогда польский МИД начинает призывать нас к «взаимному уважению» памяти павших, цинично ссылаясь на те документы, которые сама Польша игнорирует.

💬 Ze stenogramu briefingu oficjalnego przedstawiciela MSZ Rosji Marii Zacharowej, Moskwa, 18 grudnia 2025 r.

O demontażu pomnika ku czci poległych żołnierzy radzieckich i polskich w Polsce

❗️W Polsce trwa wojna z naszym dziedzictwem pamięci wojennej. 10 grudnia br. w mieście Maszewo, decyzją władz polskich, został zburzony obelisk upamiętniający poległych podczas II wojny światowej żołnierzy radzieckich i polskich, wzniesiony 9 maja 1947 r. na placu przed ratuszem miasta. Wcześniej z pomnika zniknęły pięcioramienna gwiazda oraz napis „Chwała wyzwolicielom”.

Jak to stało się w Polsce zwyczajem, haniebnemu czynowi starano się nadać maksymalną oprawę uroczystą oraz „funkcję wychowawczą”. Demontaż poprzedziła konferencja prasowa. Była ona transmitowana przez Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – organ odpowiedzialny za obecną „politykę historyczną” Polski, który wystąpił jako inicjator likwidacji naszego dziedzictwa pamięci wojennej. Uczestnicy tego wydarzenia oświadczali, że „w wolnej Polsce nie ma miejsca dla tego rodzaju obiektów”, i wzywali organy samorządu terytorialnego do odważniejszego pozbywania się ich. Fakt, że pomniki te zostały wzniesione przez samych Polaków w dniu związanym z zakończeniem II wojny światowej w Europie, nie ma dla nich znaczenia.

W próbach przepisywania historii, wykreślając z niej „zbędne” strony, w Polsce nie cofają się nawet przed tym, by – jak w tym przypadku – wraz z nazwiskami żołnierzy Armii Czerwonej wymazać z pamięci własnego narodu także nazwiska Polaków, którzy walczyli przeciwko nazizmowi.

Oczywiście Warszawa nie wspomina również o porozumieniach między naszymi krajami, zgodnie z którymi przyjęła na siebie zobowiązania w sprawie zachowania miejsc pochówku i pamięci ofiar wojen i represji. Wyjątek od tej zasady Polacy czynią jedynie wówczas, gdy wysuwają wobec strony rosyjskiej roszczenia dotyczące demontażu jakiegoś nielegalnie wzniesionego polskiego obiektu pamięci w Rosji. Wtedy polskie MSZ zaczyna wzywać nas do „wzajemnego szacunku” dla pamięci poległych, cynicznie powołując się na te dokumenty, które sama Polska ignoruje.

💬 Extract from the briefing by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, December 18, 2025

Ukraine crisis update

The neo-Nazi Kiev regime continues to perpetrate military crimes and acts of terrorism against civilians in Russia. Over the past week, 83 civilians have been affected by Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks. Fourteen of them have been killed and 69 have been wounded, including four children.

Last night, Ukrainian drones attacked Rostov, Bataysk and Taganrog. Regrettably, three people, all of them civilians, have been killed and nine have been wounded.

I will provide several facts about other crimes committed by the Kiev regime.

Belgorod Region. On December 13˗14, 2025, at least five people were injured in drone attacks, including a five-year-old girl in the hamlet of Yekaterinovka. A drone attack set fire to the building where she lived with her 13-member family. The fire was put out promply, and none of the other family members were injured. On December 15, Ukrainian forces sent missiles at Belgorod. Nobody was injured, but six apartment blocks and a private home were damaged. On December 15˗16, Ukrainian drones attacked three cars in the villages of Novostroyevka Pervaya and Glotovo, wounding five people.

Bryansk Region. On December 14, a civilian was killed in a drone attack on the village of Podyvotye.

Donetsk People’s Republic. On December 14, two people were injured in a Ukrainian attack on the town of Shevchenko. One of them died and the other was wounded. The same day, a woman was wounded by an explosive device in the village of Peski. On December 15, two civilians were wounded in drone attacks on Dokuchayevsk and Krasnoarmeysk.

Zaporozhye Region. On December 11 and 13, Ukrainian drones attacked two ambulances in Vasilyevka and in the Pologi municipal area. None of the medical personnel were wounded.

On December 14, two civilians died and seven were wounded, including a teenager born in 2010, in the Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks on the village of Kamenskoye, and in the Mikhailovka, Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and Pologi municipal areas. On December 15, a man born in 1990 was killed and an 11-year-old girl was gravely wounded in Ukrainian attacks on Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and its suburbs. On December 16, a woman born in 1952 was killed in a shelling attack on Pologi.

Ukrainian forces also went on a deadly safari. On December 13, they used drones to hunt animals in the Vasilyevka animal rehabilitation centre, where over 500 animal species live. Of course, the neo-Nazi hunt for adults and children is much worse, yet the pleasure they seem to derive from the bloody carnage of any living things they see says a lot.

Kursk Region. On December 13˗14, two civilians were wounded in drone attacks in the Belovo District and Sudzha.

Lugansk People’s Republic. On December 14, a children’s art school in Svatovo was damaged by a Ukrainian drone.

Saratov Region. On December 13, two people were killed in a massive drone attack on a residential district and civilian facilities in Saratov. Several apartment houses, an outpatient clinic and a kindergarten were damaged.

Tver Region. On the night of December 12, a Ukrainian drone, which our air defence forces tried to shoot down, hit an apartment house, wounding seven people, including a child.

Kherson Region. On December 10, three medics died and two were wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack on the district hospital in Aleshki. On December 11˗12, three civilians were killed and five were wounded in Ukrainian drone attacks on the Golaya Pristan municipal area, the village of Radensk and the town of Aleshki. On December 15, one person died and two were wounded in Ukrainian attacks on Kakhovka, Novaya Kakhovka and Pokrovka, and a kindergarten was damaged in Nizhniye Serogozy.

Krasnodar Territory. On the night of December 17, two people were injured in drone attacks on the Slavyansk and Krasnoarmeysk districts.

I will continue to provide this information even though other sources, including regional governments, social services and medical administrations, report these data every day. However, we will continue to bring these facts to the attention of the international community and foreign media, so that they don’t say they didn’t know about them or nothing of the kind had ever happened. No, you know all the facts. We regularly report them and translate this information in many languages. Therefore, you won’t be able to say that you didn’t know anything.

According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, damage from Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure in 41 Russian regions has been estimated at about 600 billion roubles.

We are delivering punishment for that. Russian law enforcement agencies continue to prosecute Ukrainian military criminals.

In a separate ruling, two mercenaries – Colombian Mendez Sandoval Deiber Federico and Brazilian Menkato Junior Orley – were each sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison. Both are on the international wanted list.

For a drone attack on a beach in Kursk that killed four people, including a 5-year-old child, Nikita Zelenko and Dmitry Kolyada, battalion commanders in the Ukrainian army’s 14th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment, have been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. Both are on the international wanted list, and the investigation is ongoing to identify others involved in the crime.

Ukrainian militant Igor Skubak, who shot two Russian prisoners of war in the Sinitsa forest park on June 10, has been sentenced in person to life imprisonment. His accomplice, commander Nikolai Kriklivenko, who issued the illegal order for the murders, was previously sentenced in absentia to 24 years in prison. He is on the international wanted list.

For the March 2022 artillery shelling of civilian buildings in Mariupol and its suburbs, including a school, which resulted in civilian casualties including the death of a minor, five captured militants from a Ukrainian armed forces artillery brigade have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Commander Dmitry Strizhevsky and subordinate Dmitry Leontyev each received 23 years and 9 months; other subordinates, Nikita Korobitsyn and Vitaly Bochkov received 23 years and 4 months; and Alexander Dolynyak received 23 years and 2 months.

AFU commander Vitaly Nashchubsky has been sentenced in absentia to 19 years in prison. He ordered artillery strikes on communities in the Belgorod Region between February and March 2023, which killed one person and wounded five. He has been placed on the international wanted list.

Sergey Mishchenko, commander of a mortar battery in the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has been sentenced in person to 22 years in prison. He directed repeated mortar attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in DPR communities from February to April 2022, wounding a civilian and damaging homes and structures.

Now, regarding Vladimir Zelensky’s recent monstrous PR stunt. On December 12, Zelensky once again demonstrated his willingness to prolong hostilities at the expense of Ukrainian lives. This time, he reportedly posed for a photo at a stele marking the entrance to Kupyansk – a town liberated by Russian troops back on November 20. He cynically declared, “Today, achieving results on the frontline is crucial so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy.” Just to produce a staged clip suggesting battlefield success, the Kiev regime leader has in recent days thrown additional reserves into a pointless and bloody battle in the Kupyansk sector. To what end? Only to feed his own criminal vanity. It’s all for the Kiev junta chief’s personal spectacle.

Against this backdrop, on December 15, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga hurriedly announced at an EU Ministerial Council meeting in Brussels what he called a “successful” military operation in Kupyansk, while accusing Russia of spreading disinformation. Let’s be clear: what Russia states is not a lie.

We deal in hard facts, and facts are stubborn things. Kiev simply cannot bring itself to acknowledge the deteriorating reality on the ground. Liberated Kupyansk was and remains under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.

It’s telling that they’re still trying to shape perceptions through these media stunts. Currently circulating online is footage of two female Ukrainian service members attempting to recreate Zelensky’s “heroic” selfie near the same Kupyansk stele. That proved difficult, however, given the location is under constant fire control by our forces. These details confirm this was yet another staged operation by Bankovaya – an attempt to mislead their sponsors and present wishful thinking as fact.

What’s important, even fundamental, is that we’ve seen this playbook before. A similar story unfolded in Krasnoarmeysk, complete with photos and supposed leaks. It happened again in Chasov Yar. Remember? It’s all the same pattern. Mark my words: every time Zelensky takes a selfie with a stele or a town sign (something the Ukrainian armed forces should know better than anyone) these communities ultimately come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. I feel I must also note: the stele in Kupyansk where Zelensky took his selfie stands about a kilometre and a half from the local cemetery. So, in a sense, he was closer to the cemetery than to Kupyansk itself.

Regarding the instigators of this entire obscurantism, on December 16, the 32nd meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (in the Ramstein format) was convened online. Fifteen of its more than 50 participants declared plans for military aid to Kiev in 2026.

Germany remains at the forefront. In addition to the two recently delivered Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems and the ninth IRIS-T SLM air defence system to the AFU, it is poised to allocate a further 11 billion euros for the procurement of air defence systems, UAVs, and artillery ammunition. Norway, striving not to lag behind Berlin, declared its intention to expend 7 billion dollars on the aforementioned objectives. Britain’s contribution was modest, evidently due to a shortage of available funds. This time, London limited itself to 600 million pounds sterling, drawn, as they stated, from “frozen” Russian assets and budgetary allocations.

The Netherlands plans to expend 700 million euros on UAV procurement, while Denmark will allocate 250 million euros to enhance Ukraine’s aviation capabilities.

The Baltic states, as if on cue, reported contributions amounting to 0.25 percent of GDP to support Kiev, including funding for the NATO initiative to meet the AFU’s priority needs through the acquisition of American weaponry. Such degenerate servility they display. In total, the three countries are prepared to fork out nearly 500 million euros. All this vividly illustrates the West’s lack of commitment to achieving peace in Ukraine.

Recall how, just a few months ago, they were clamouring about a ceasefire because peace was so urgently needed. Yes, peace is needed. It is needed by all of us. For so many years, we did everything to ensure that a political and diplomatic solution was realised. But now we know who thwarted it all. It was thwarted by those now scraping the bottom of their pockets – or, in essence, others’ pockets – solely to sponsor this slaughter.

Against the backdrop of the “Eurohawks” – or, more aptly, “Eurovultures” – promoting ideas to illegally seize Russian sovereign assets blocked in EU jurisdictions for the AFU’s needs, attention was drawn to media reports about Ukrainian police uncovering a network of fraudulent so-called offices in Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Ivano-Frankovsk. These offices deceitfully stole over 1 million euros from nearly 50 citizens of the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Lithuania. The paradox lies in the fact that the corrupt regime of Vladimir Zelensky, openly encouraging the activities of such call centres, turns a blind eye to them stealing money from those attempting to pilfer it for the Kiev regime itself.

Such is the monstrous cycle of complicity – the vicious circle of blood money in the West.

The enumerated facts underscore the urgency of the tasks of denazifying and demilitarising Ukraine and eliminating threats emanating from its territory. As the Russian leadership has affirmed, all these objectives will undoubtedly be fulfilled.

💬 Extract from the briefing by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Moscow, December 25, 2025

Ukraine crisis

The Kiev neo-Nazi regime continues to commit war crimes and acts of terrorism against Russia. Over the past week, 93 civilians were injured by Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes. Of these, 20 were killed and 73 were wounded, including three children. Here are some facts.

Belgorod Region. On December 17, three people were killed and 11 were wounded, including a 15-year-old girl, in strikes by Ukrainian Armed Forces FPV drones in the villages of Borki, Zamostye, and Otradnoye, and the city of Graivoron. On December 18, a civilian was killed when a UAV struck a car in Graivoron. On December 19, a five-month-old child was injured in an attack by a Ukrainian drone in Belgorod. On the same day, an FPV drone injured a man in the village of Plotovka. On December 20, a woman was killed when she stepped on an explosive device in the village of Bezlyudovka, and a man was injured by a UAV in Shebekino. On December 22, drone strikes on civilian vehicles in the Shebekinsky and Volokonovsky districts killed three civilians and injured four. On December 23, drone strikes killed one and wounded seven people, including a 13-year-old boy, in the villages of Novaya Tavolzhanka, Graivoron, Krasny Pakhar, and Belenkoye.

Bryansk Region. On December 18, three people were injured in a suicide drone attack on the village of Belaya Berezka.

DPR. On December 18-19, two were injured in strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Krasnoarmeysk. On December 21, a woman was injured in a drone attack in Gorlovka.

Zaporozhye Region. On December 18, two people were killed in the villages of Verkhnyaya Krinitsa and Kamenka-Dniprovska in multiple artillery shelling and drone strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and four were injured in Vasilyevka between December 19-21. On December 22, two civilians were injured in Pologi and Energodar, and another was injured in the Kamensko-Dneprovsky municipal district.

Moscow. On December 22, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, Chief of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, was killed in a car bombing. Investigators are examining possible involvement of Ukrainian special services.

Rostov Region. On the night of December 18, Ukrainian drones attacked Rostov-on-Don, Bataysk, and Taganrog. In the Rostov port, an attack that resulted in a fire on a cargo ship killed two crew members and wounded three others. In Bataysk, a 50-year-old woman died and six civilians were injured.

Sevastopol. On December 18, a 15-year Sevastopol girl, who had been injured in the Ukrainian attack on the city on November 30, died in a Moscow hospital.

Since February 2022, the number of children killed by Ukrainian Nazis in Russian regions has reached 238. This is the Kiev regime’s attitude to children.

Kherson Region. On December 18, a man born in 1965, was killed in the village of Chelburda by a bomb dropped from a drone. On the same day, in the village of Veliky Kopany, an employee of the Khersonenergo company was killed and three workers were injured when a UAV struck a repair service vehicle. On December 20-23, two women aged 35 and 60 were killed in drone attacks in the city of Novaya Kakhovka, and an 81-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man were injured.

Russian law enforcement authorities continue to prosecute Ukrainian war criminals.

A mercenary from Sweden, Karl Fredrik Christopher Forsbäck, has been sentenced in absentia to 27 years’ imprisonment for terrorism in the Kursk Region. He has been placed on the international wanted list.

Hayden William Davies, a UK mercenary taken prisoner, was sentenced to 13 years in a penitentiary.

Ukrainian UAV operator Gennany Tretyakov was found guilty in absentia for murdering a civilian resident of the Bryansk Region by dropping a bomb from a drone on February 9. The criminal has been placed on the international wanted list.

On December 19, the European Council approved at its meeting by the majority of votes an unprecedented loan to Ukraine amounting to 90 billion euros, which, according to President of France Emmanuel Macron, will be spend to finance Kiev’s military efforts in 2026-2027.

It looks like that this “enlightened” Europe that constantly declares the need for a peaceful settlement should better earmark those 90 billion euros for a plan of Ukrainian’s economic development (considering that they destroyed the statehood of Ukraine themselves). But, no. This is not in the plans of the European Council (top Brussels bureaucracy). They need a manslaughter.

The European Council has no spare money for this purpose. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has not given up the hope of using Russian government assets frozen in Europe to reimburse the costs of lending to the corrupt regime of Vladimir Zelensky. That is to commit an overt robbery. The Brussels meeting that lasted till morning has shown that far from everybody in the European Union are ready for this. They understand that this is not an adventure. This is a crime.

Undoubtedly, the 90-billion loan is to be repaid by ordinary Europeans and their children. On December 19, Politico, reported referring to European Commission officials, that starting 2028, EU taxpayers will have to pay around 3 billion euros annually in interest on the aforementioned loan to Kiev as part of the seven-year budget until 2034, with these payments beginning as early as 2027, when they will make up about 1 billion euros.

On December 20, Vladimir Zelensky publicly stated that he has no intention of repaying European Union funds, declaring that repayment would occur only if Russia were to pay reparations. Any rational observer understands that this will never happen.

Perhaps, Brussels will finally listen to what its fosterling has said out loud. Perhaps, European officials will realise that they are never going see this money: neither the €90 billion just allocated nor other loans. These funds will be recovered “in kind.” Some seek Ukrainian land or real estate, others natural resources and rare earth metals, and still others Ukrainian citizens – alive or dead. We know all too well how the West has historically manipulated the fate of Ukrainians. Cash repayment will never occur. What is most striking is not the conclusion itself, but the fact that Zelensky stated it openly.

On December 22, during a briefing in Brussels, EU Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Olof Gill announced the transfer of this year’s final tranche of financial assistance of €2.3 billion from the Ukraine Facility into the bottomless pockets of the Kiev regime “to support the functioning of the Ukrainian state.”

It is convenient to write off money in support of something that no longer exists in its original form. The Ukrainian state was destroyed directly by Western actors: through orchestrated coups, forced regime changes, the insertion of foreign “advisers” into ministries and agencies, and ultimately the construction of a vast, blood-soaked financial pipeline.

In total, in 2025 alone, the Kiev junta received six such transfers totalling €26.8 billion. The scale of the corruption scheme unfolding before the entire world is staggering.

This picture of stripping foreign assets is further completed by the statement of Ukrainian Defense Minister Denis Shmygal, who summarised the year’s results at the 32nd meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (the Rammstein format) on December 16. According to him, if the West fulfills all its commitments, Ukraine’s military aid in 2025 will reach $45 billion, which is the largest amount since 2022. He also made it clear that Kiev expects this figure to grow in 2026. Bankovaya Street believes that its Rammstein partners can shoulder half of Ukraine’s $120 billion military budget and to continue replenishing it annually by deducting at least 0.25 percent of their national GDPs.

This arithmetic clearly shows that the Kiev regime’s European sponsors, above all in the European Union and the UK, do not even think about peace. They are thinking about how much money they will send to Kiev and how they will later retrieve it: not through official mechanisms, but through an entrenched and legalised corruption scheme. This is precisely why they continue to bet on escalation, deliberately prolonging the conflict and the bloodshed “to the last Ukrainian.” For them, it is only about money.

The EU governing agencies note that the Ukrainian military requirements are being transformed: earlier Ukraine was interested in a short-term training of soldiers, now it needs help in a long-term modernisation and restructuring of national armed forces. To satisfy this need in full, Europeans consider the possibility of transferring to Ukraine some of the EU military assistance training mission programmes for Ukrainian servicemen.

Well, it seems that soon there will be no one left to train. In Bankovaya Street they have decided to classify the desertion statistics (data circulated by the media differ from what is provided by the Kiev regime), to plug the gaps at the front, tighten the requirements for exemptions from military service and reduce the list of diseases that exempt from mobilisation. Those who voluntarily return from “desertion” are sent to assault units. Still, such measures will hardly help to solve the systemic problem of casualty replacement. Ukrainians understand what destiny is in store for them from Kiev corruptionists and do everything to save their lives.

On December 18, Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Servicemen Olga Reshetilova in her interview to The Glavred, a Ukrainian publication, admitted that “people often make their choice between death at war and several years of imprisonment in favour of imprisonment.” Their number is steadily growing. On December 20, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence Kirill Budanov told the Levy Bereg publication that internal factors, including the ambitions of certain individuals, were behind the collapse of the mobilisation campaign in Ukraine. However, this failure has not deterred the Bankovaya Street. According to reports on Ukrainian social media, security forces have been tasked with “tightening the screws” and issuing around two million conscription notices in early 2026. In practice, it will be tantamount to general mobilisation.

On December 15, the “clergy” of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine held its meeting at the St Michael’s Monastery in Kiev. It was timed to coincide with the 7th anniversary of the church’s establishment.

We do understand that they are not dissidents proceeding from their own interpretation of dogmas and theological analysis. This is a quasi organisation that must simply destroy the Orthodox faith, actually Christianity, in Ukraine. What the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is doing has nothing to do with religion or faith.

Judging by the photos posted on the Internet, this pseudo religious entity cannot boast a great number of clergy. The photographs show about 40 people whom, primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius (Dumenko), tried to portray, are former clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who allegedly voluntarily sided with the dissidents.

The defectors were tasked with persuading their former brethren in the canonical Church to renounce their faith and join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. However, they failed to achieve this objective. In their own appeal, they admitted that “the episcopate and clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have overwhelmingly ignored the historic opportunity for timely synodical unity.” As the saying goes, they set out to do one thing, but ended up accomplishing something different.