Brian's unique explorations of the war and the historical context and events leading up to Russia's current assault against Ukraine

(Russian/Русский перевод) Brian's Ukraine journalism has been praised by: Mykhailo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; the Ukraine Territorial Defense Forces; Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army (Ret.), former commanding general, U.S. Army Europe; Scott Shane, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times and Baltimore Sun journalist (featured in HBO's The Wire, playing himself); Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the only Republicans to stand up to Trump and member of the January 6th Committee; and Orwell Prize-winning journalist Jenni Russell, among others.  His analysis of Ukraine has been featured by Newsweek, Real Clear Defense, Small Wars Journal, Byline Times, the Arabic television stations Alghad TV and Alaraby TV (including his debate with former major Putin advisor, Kremlin insider, and Duma lawmaker Sergei Markov), interviews for the French news site Atlantico, the German news site Buzzard, the Ministry of Defense of Brazil, and Indian Strategic Studies.

Over two decades, Brian has majored in Russian history, studied Russia's war against Georgia in graduate school, and covered Russia and its foreign policy as a journalist, including writing for the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) from 2015-2017 as one of the most popular guest scholar contributors until he was censored for his post on Prevezon's corrupt work for the Kremlin.  Since 2014, he has covered Russia's longstanding campaign to dominate Ukraine and turn it into a de facto vassal, including the historical context of Russia's 2014 military aggression against Ukraine in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk; The (First) Russo-American Cyberwar's 2016 U.S. presidential election interference, a central aim of which was to further the Kremlin's Ukraine campaign partnering with a pliant Donald Trump; Trump's first impeachment centering on Ukraine; Russia's 2020 election interference; and Putin's current exponential military escalation (he was possibly the only analyst to predict beforehand in writing Ukraine's sinking of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet Flagship, the Moskva), including a podcast with Ukraine's 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Oleksandra Matviichuk.  This coverage includes his groundbreaking eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials (available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, & EPUB).

A large number of the articles on the current war are adapted from three of Brian's Small Wars Journal articles:

THE CURRENT WAR

The Post-Putin World Will Be So Much Better than This One

Imagining a post-Putin world is not as hard as many would think and would be better for everyone, including Russia and China (Russian/Русский перевод; Если вы состоите в российской армии и хотите сдаться Украине, звоните по этим номерам: +38 066 ...
Read More
Russian KIA casualties chart

Offensive Smensive: 8 Reasons Why Russia’s Expected Offensive Cannot Succeed

Enough with the “Russian offensive” hype. Whatever the Kremlin manages to stitch together in the coming weeks and months, there is no reason to suspect it will be anything different from what Russian operations have been for the more than ...
Read More
6 months of Russian "progress" in Bakhmut, Sept-March

THE TWO MAPS SHOWING WHY RUSSIA’S BAKHMUT CAMPAIGN IS UNDENIABLY A MISERABLE FAILURE (including Soledar)

Pictures are often worth a thousand words or even far more, and what I present here is no exception, proof positive of Russia’s pathetic levels of “success” over the course of four months (Russian/Русский перевод; Если вы состоите в российской ...
Read More
6 months of Russian "progress" in Bakhmut, Sept-March

Russia’s Pyrrhic Advances at Soledar Near Bakhmut Setting Up Ukrainian Counteroffensive, Not Russian Victory

Many analysts seem focused on whether proclamations by Russia that it has “won” the battle for Soledar are accurate or how accurate. The bigger picture here shows that regardless, Russia is setting itself up for a titanic defeat because of ...
Read More

An Urgently Needed Definition of “Fascism” as the West Fights It Anew at Home and Abroad

Happy New Year! Sadly, in 2023 and beyond, we will and must confront a dreadful specter of the past not only abroad but also at home: fascism. In our current era it is on the rise, but one of the ...
Read More
Dyagilevo

Russia-Ukraine War Settles into Predictable Alternating Phases, But Russia’s Losing Remains Constant

I have not weighed in with a major piece in a while because I did not feel enough has changed since my last major analysis, but that so much is explained by old analysis is itself telling and worthy of ...
Read More

Winter War in Ukraine: Seeing Through the Blizzard of Bad Takes

Winter is coming, but it won’t affect Russia and Ukraine equally in this war (Russian/Русский перевод; Если вы состоите в российской армии и хотите сдаться Украине, звоните по этим номерам: +38 066 580 34 98 или +38 093 119 29 ...
Read More
Ukraine Mordor Painting

Capturing the Unique Inspirational Quality of Ukraine’s Fight Against Russia via Two Writers

If you’re feeling something stirring deep inside your soul when it comes Ukraine’s fight for its freedom against Putin’s Russia, you should and here’s why (Russian/Русский перевод; Если вы состоите в российской армии и хотите сдаться Украине, звоните по этим ...
Read More
Ukraine war

This Is the Beginning of the End of the War

The current Ukrainian advances will be the ones to push Russian ground forces completely out of Ukraine, leaving any remaining combat to take place on or just over the border with Russia or with longer-range systems, ending major ground combat ...
Read More
ISW protests 9-26

Why Putin Has Doomed Himself with His Ukraine Fiasco

Putin’s mobilization is myopically feared by some but does more damage to him at home than anything to help the war effort, the dynamics of which have been set and cannot be altered by this mobilization or “referenda”/“annexation” gimmicks that ...
Read More
Putin meg

I Saw This War Could Be Putin’s Undoing All the Way Back in Early March

Revisiting my coverage from early in Putin's escalation campaign and a new excerpt (Russian/Русский перевод) By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter @bfry1981, LinkedIn, Facebook), September 16, 2022; with an excerpt from his article The Beginning of the End of Putin? Why ...
Read More
Victors of Kupyansk 2

Russian Army Collapses—and Revolution—Near-Certain as Russia Loses War: When/Where Harder to Predict

Losing this badly will help wake up millions of Russians to some level of reality, and they will blame Putin. It is doubtful that the Russian military will keep fighting under these conditions for much longer. (Russian/Русский перевод; Если вы ...
Read More

BACKGROUND

LNG terminal at Rotterdam

The U.S. Should Weaponize Europe’s Oil and Natural Gas Markets in an Economic Offensive Against Russia

When it comes to the West’s problems with Russia, there is a unique opportunity for the U.S. to fuse economics and geopolitics in partnership with Europe to significantly tip some ...
Read More

Already in a Cyberwar with Russia, NATO Must Expand Article 5 to Include Cyberwarfare

The nature of warfare is changing and cyberwarfare is increasingly the battlefield on which our battles against our enemies are and will be fought, as Russia’s recent unprecedented SolarWinds hacking ...
Read More
NATO cyberwarfare

The History of Russia’s Cyberwarfare Against NATO Shows It Is Time to Add to NATO’s Article 5

Since cyberwarfare has become a thing, Russia has been the only serious perpetrator of cyberwarfare against members of the NATO military alliance, with its just-discovered massive SolarWinds cyberwarfare operation only ...
Read More
Donald Trump, his kids, and Alexander Shnaider opening Trump Tower Toronto

When Dirty Russian-Connected Money Saved Trump’s Ass and His Ensuing Business Disasters Helped Destroy the Global and American Economies

As Trump’s taxes return to the news, here is the parallel context and setup where he went from failure on the verge of collapse to being propped up by money ...
Read More
Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman

The Nexus of American Right-Wing and Kremlin Disinformation Exposes Trump-Russia’s Mechanics

(Russian/Русский перевод) How Trump, Putin, Giuliani, the Russian mafia, and the working relationships between their agents and media allies in the Hunter Biden witch-hunt show how the Trump-Russia sausage is made ...
Read More
White nationalists in Charlottesville

Nationalism: A National Security Threat from Without and Within and one of Putin’s Favorite Weapons

Whatever its origin, nationalism taken too far can instigate violence and destroy democracy, and this is exactly what Putin is trying to do with it By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, ...
Read More
From Russia with Love

Coronavirus and History, Russia and Italy, the War for Reality, and the Nexus of It All

Excerpt 5 of 5, adapted to stand alone, from a May 26, 2020 SPECIAL REPORT on coronavirus By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) 1-A Brief, Non-Comprehensive Survey of Bioweapons, Biowarfare, and ...
Read More
Biden Ukraine

The Untold Story of the Bidens and Burisma

The scale has been upended with the repeated transmissions of Trump’s—and the Kremlin's—lies about Biden. The real story is quite different and has yet to be properly framed by the ...
Read More

Time to Play Hardball with Russia

After President Donald Trump’s and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s embarrassing meetings today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, now is the perfect time to acknowledge the Kremlin acts with ...
Read More
eBook cover

A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials (eBook preview/excerpt)

A preview of an Epic Saga with companion sections in fifteen parts By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter@bfry1981) November 24, 2019 (Update: December 7, 2019: we now know Giuliani ...
Read More

Ukrainegate Proves the Media Has Learned Almost Nothing from 2016

The dangerous myopia of the media must be corrected or opponents of Trump—including the free press—have little chance to topple him in 2020 By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) November 19, 2019; ...
Read More

How Cohen’s and Manafort’s Ukraine Ties Tell the Deeper Story of Trump-Russia and the Mueller Probe

Both Cohen and Manafort have close ties to people close to Putin’s Russian mafia henchmen and who are central to Trump-Russia. Their work is closer than most previous analysis has ...
Read More
Other Related External Articles by Brian:

NEWSWEEK

DONALD TRUMP'S RUSSIA TIES: HOW IS PAUL MANAFORT’S WORK IN UKRAINE CONNECTED?- 11/8/17

The Jerusalem Post

The war in Ukraine is embarrassing for Israelis and Palestinians- November 1, 2022

BYLINE TIMES

How Ukraine’s Southern Offensive Could Lead to the End of the War- August 16, 2022

SMALL WARS JOURNAL

NATO Is in a Cyberwar with Russia and Must Expand Article 5 to Include Cyberwarfare or Risk Losing and Diminishment- 09/24/2021

WAR IS BORING

How Syria Fits Into the Trump-Russia Scandal- March 29, 2018

 

External Audio/Video interview of Brian on Ukraine

Twitter Spaces:

Panel with Rep. Adam Kinzinger-5/6/2022

DONATE TO SUPPORT UKRAINE! Слава Украине! Slava Ukraini!

Save the Children is one of the premier international aid organizations.

Come Back Alive is an organization that supports the Ukrainian military.

The Ukrainian government’s central bank, the National Bank of Ukraine, has also opened special accounts for people to donate to both the Ukrainian Armed Forces and for humanitarian assistance for civilians.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is another amazing humanitarian organization.

The main UN body to help refugees is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which does amazing work all over the world. Another vital UN agency involved in helping Ukraine is the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a deeply experienced organization, provides emergency medical services for the wounded in Ukraine.