Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Dmitry Gubin
[REGNUM] On February 25, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially confirmed that fighters from the "North" group of forces had taken control of the village of Grafskoye in the Kharkiv region. The village, which has been the subject of heavy fighting in recent weeks, is located on the banks of the Seversky Donets River, southwest of the city of Vovchansk, which was captured in December 2025.
The liberation of Grafskoye reminds us of who owned these lands and how, and what once stood where the front line ran. And the people who lived there were worthy, from all walks of life.
Like most of the surrounding settlements, Grafskoye arose during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and near the present-day village. A river flowed through the area; in 1659, it was unnamed on the map but soon became known as the Ilma or Ilmen. At its confluence with the Seversky Donets, the village of Ilmen was founded, where the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki was built.
And so the landless sons of boyars and peasants, who had arrived both from Belgorod and from across the Dnieper, lived side by side. The names of the original settlers have been preserved, but not all of them have their social class affiliations.
And while there were no particular problems with confirming land ownership rights, not everyone was able to confirm their nobility under Peter I and the following sovereigns and empresses, and many descendants of service people ended up as single-farmstead peasants, referred to in official documents as old-timers.
Defending themselves against the claims of neighboring landowners, they could present the charters of Alexei Mikhailovich and his sons in court. A landowner, however, had emerged in those parts near Volchansk during the reign of Peter the Great. He was the well-known Tsar's favorite, Pyotr Shafirov.
But he never made it there and played no role in the life of these places. There are no traces of his activities in either Ilmen or Rubezhnoye, seven miles away. The Church of St. Andrew the First-Called was built by local residents without any involvement from the nobleman, as was the village of Andreyevka, which later became Grafskoye.
In 1723, this upstart fell into disgrace, and the Tsar took these lands from him in order to give them to no less egregious parvenu - the relatives of his wife Catherine.
The first Russian empress, née Martha Skavronskaya, had a younger sister, Christina, who married a certain Hendrik, who became Simon upon baptism into Orthodoxy. Their children became known as the Hendrik family, and in 1742, their cousin, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, awarded them the title of count.
The eldest of them, Andrei Simonovich, became the first owner of Andreevka, Ilmen, and Rubezhnoye. He is known to have risen to the rank of chamberlain, married one of the daughters of Artemy Volynsky, executed during the reign of Anna, and had no children. However, he did settle over five hundred new residents in these areas.
But his younger brother Ivan Simonovich and their sisters left offspring, and thanks to them, the blood of the Hendrikovs can be found in many respected families.
Ivan Simonovich rose through the ranks to the rank of general-in-chief and commander of the Cavalry Guards Corps. He settled in Andreyevka and was buried in Rubezhnoye. But the estate's heyday is associated with his grandson's wife, Anna Alexandrovna. It was under her rule that a luxurious manor house and the stone church of St. Andrew were built there.
This estate survived in its best condition until 1914, when art historian Georgy Lukomsky visited and left a detailed description. Here's how he described its layout:
“It is located in an extremely picturesque area on the banks of the Donets River, and although on a low bank of the river, it is in such a way that from the estate one can see the wonderful mountain bank, still covered with a centuries-old oak forest.”
Lukomsky suggested that the estate was built by a Moscow architect from the circle of the famous architect Domenico Gilardi. According to the art historian's description, the house consisted of a main three-story building with a portico and a small cupola, two outbuildings connected by wings, and a series of single-story outbuildings perpendicular to the main building on either side of a spacious courtyard. The courtyard was occupied in the center by a circular flowerbed with shrubs.
“When entering the gates, one gets a picture that is highly typical of a beautiful manor house, and at the same time, it is a decoratively charming picture that just begs to be used in a production of a Turgenev play,” the art critic noted.
Besides the manor house, another landmark of Andreyevka, which became Grafskoye in 1849, was its riding arena. Alexander Gendrikov founded one of the largest stud farms in Grafskoye; his family included generals, governors, and Volchansk district marshals of the nobility.
Unlike their neighbors, these lands were not fragmented, sold, or mortgaged. So, for nearly two hundred years, the same family owned more than 15,000 dessiatines in the Volchansky district and grew their wealth. Unlike their neighbors, the Rebinder and Rozalion-Soshalsky, the Gendrikovs were not forced into exile during the Civil War and were able to emigrate. However, their estate disappeared during the interwar period; only one outbuilding remains.
The village was renamed 1st Sovietskoye (Radyanske), and only in 2016 was it renamed Grafskoye. Life continued there, and in 1931, the future People's Artist of the USSR, coloratura soprano Yevgeniya Miroshnichenko, was born in 1st Sovietskoye. Muslim Magomayev noted that no one but her could sing Alyabyev's romance "The Nightingale" so well.
Now, this historic village, directly connected to Peter the Great, is under the protection of the Russian army. There's hope that the phrase "on the count's ruins" will no longer be associated with these places.
[Reuters] A large Chinese military drone has conducted regular flights over the South China Sea in recent months while transmitting false transponder signals that made it appear to be other aircraft, including a sanctioned Belarusian cargo plane and a British Typhoon fighter jet.
Military attaches and security analysts scrutinising the operations say the flights represent a step-change in China's grey-zone tactics in the contested South China Sea and appear to be testing possible decoy capabilities in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Since August, at least 23 flights have been logged under the call sign YILO4200, a known long-endurance Chinese military drone, but the aircraft transmitted registration numbers of other aircraft, according to Reuters analysis of data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
The flight paths often head east from the Chinese province of Hainan towards the Philippines, near the disputed Paracel Islands, and down Vietnam's coast, the flight analysis showed.
Reuters is reporting the scale and complexity of the operations for the first time.
The operations represent a new and elaborate element in China's expanding presence across the South China Sea and around Taiwan as its military responds to Communist Party demands to sharpen the readiness of its forces, according to three regional diplomats, four open-source intelligence analysts and three security scholars familiar with the flight data. The activities include exploiting electronic warfare and deception tactics in real time, they said.
And while the masking is unlikely to fully deceive air traffic controllers or military-grade radars, it could sow time-wasting confusion in a conflict, conceal sensitive surveillance activity or be used for propaganda or misinformation, the envoys and intelligence analysts said.
"We've not seen anything like this before," said Ben Lewis, founder of the open-source data platform PLATracker.
"It's ... a kind of deception trial being carried out in real time using aircraft that are not exactly low profile. It does not appear to be at all accidental."
China's defence ministry didn't respond to Reuters questions about the flights and their purpose.
BELARUSIAN CARGO PLANE
The flights have mostly appeared on Flightradar24 as an Ilyushin-62 cargo plane operated by Rada Airlines of Belarus but also a Royal Air Force Typhoon, a North Korean Il-62 passenger jet and an anonymous Gulfstream executive jet.
Since mid-December, YILO4200 has also made several flights in northwest China, most recently on February 15 when it appeared as an anonymous Pilatus PC-12, a small turboprop passenger aircraft.
Aircraft registration numbers stem from a coded so-called 24-bit address governed by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Broadcast via transponders, the numbers help reveal an aircraft's position, direction and speed.
While unique to each aircraft, the addresses are publicly known and two pilots and two analysts say recoding a transponder to give it a different registration number is possible.
Rada was sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control in August 2024 for flying cargoes in and out of Africa that included Wagner Group personnel linked to the Russian military, as well as exotic wildlife trafficking.
The real Belarusian Il-62 has been active throughout the period with a different call sign and was once airborne at the same time as the Chinese drone attempting to mask it, the Flightradar24 data showed.
Rada Airlines did not respond to a request for comment and Britain's defence ministry said it could not comment.
An ICAO spokesperson said the body does not comment on issues or speculation concerning specific member states.
[FoxNews] Government schools spent 10 times more on devices than textbooks while Gen Z struggled with reading and math
The poor things struggled because they were forced to use Common Core methods instead of techniques that work, and because they were indoctrinated instead of properly taught.
Leave it to the government school monopoly to blow $30 billion of taxpayer money on laptops and tablets that were supposed to revolutionize learning but instead produced a generation of kids less cognitively equipped than their parents.
U.S. schools spent that staggering sum on educational technology in 2024 alone – roughly 10 times what they shelled out for textbooks. The promise was access to endless knowledge at every student's fingertips, but the outcome has been a cognitive nosedive that leaves Gen Z struggling with basic skills like attention, memory, literacy and numeracy.
Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath laid it out plainly in his Senate testimony: Gen Z marks the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the one before them. Data from over 80 countries shows the same pattern — declines in IQ, executive function and creativity, all accelerating around 2010 when digital devices flooded classrooms.
This disaster stems from the same old story: a bloated, unaccountable system that throws money at shiny gadgets to mask its failures. Public schools lack real incentives to innovate wisely or face consequences for poor results, so administrators chase trends. They’ll buy devices en masse under the guise of "equity" and "modernization," but without strategies to ensure those tools enhance actual instruction.
.....maintaining good overall health by keeping systemic diseases in check, maintaining a healthy diet and exercise, and ensuring the elderly remain mentally active assume more importance."
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#6
I had my annual healthcare screening yesterday and was asked to take a Medicare mandated mental acuity/Alzheimer test, which consisted of remember three words for over 3 minutes while distracted by other conversation, and then drawing a picture of a clock with all the numbers and showing the time of 11:10. Not exactly rocket science, but it did signal my entrance into the government designated "geezer zone" apparently!
As described, I would have failed it at twelve years old. I’ve never been good at remembering uninteresting details — too many interesting details to lose track of first.
A pithy comment from yesterday certainly worthy of thought and reflection.
#13 was it really necessary turning Iran's only natural enemy Iraq into Iranian province?
"President George Wl Bush’s original plan clearly was to hit Iran as soon as Iraq was consolidated, but the CIA deliberately spiked that with the country estimate thingy they put out announcing that Iran had entirely given up their nuclear bomb development program.
And so, the current situation, which would have been infinitely worse had Israel not been wandering through the Iranian landscape this past quarter century, killing key people and breaking key things because they knew that the CIA had lied."
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/27/2026 00:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1791 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
If the regime is removed, Iraq has the opportunity for autonomy. It’s possible that they may chose Turkish hegemony as a replacement.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/27/2026 7:25 Comments ||
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#2
The Turks has a huge contracting presence in Iraq during the Gulf War and later years.
#3
Grom's been making this point for years and he has me halfway persuaded. But the problem I have with passing over Iraq to hit Iran in 2003 is that you have to imagine an alternate timeline in which Saddam and his evil sons maintain control of Iraq for a long time, possibly up to the present day. I don't have enough imagination to say how that timeline plays out.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/27/2026 10:29 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Actually the theory that W was aiming to take out Iran after Iraq was, I think, the basis for a late 2005 or so conspiracy theory in Rolling Stone (which I can't find on line). I remember reading the issue and couldn't figure out what the conspiracy was.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/27/2026 13:37 Comments ||
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#6
We are still paying for this piece of politicized intelligence. All my life, we have incurred hostilities and suffered causalities from a belligerent Iran.
I do not recall that there was any real consideration from Bush in bombing Iran. I recall this report was my only hope to take out an arch enemy of the unites states.
The November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, declassified in December 2007, concluded with high confidence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003.
#7
^^^^I wasn't talking about attacking Iran. I was talking about the fact that, after US conquest of Iraq, Bush II received - a virtually identical advice from PM of Israel and Saudi king - "Find a nice (one with good memory) Sunni general, and make him the new head."
If you get the same advice from Arik Sharon and Fahd, you follow it and not faggots of USDS.
#8
...people who can't or will not practice legitimate republican* government at home should not try to rig another one in a country with little or no history of it.
*small r. If you want to see democracy just look at CO, VA, and NM where 51% strip 49% of their constitutional rights and representation.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
