Alexander Prokhanov — the aging ultranationalist novelist, editor, and chief ideologue of Russian imperial mysticism — has seen his latest book, Lemner, abruptly vanish from store shelves. It was printed, advertised, distributed across Russia, and then suddenly recalled. Bookstores received quiet instructions to return all copies. State television, which once glorified him, now pretends he doesn’t exist.
The reason is both banal and profound: Prokhanov’s fictionalized portrayal of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Kremlin elite revealed power as grotesque, delusional, and decaying. Even without naming names, everyone recognized the shadows behind the characters — and in one of them, the unmistakable reflection of dictator Vladimir Putin himself.
The self-drawn illustrations in Lemner are no less disturbing than the text itself. Cartoonish soldiers with haunted eyes, flaming skies, and surreal machinery create an apocalyptic parody of the very ideology Prokhanov once glorified.
The loyal mythmaker had spoken too clearly. And in doing so, he exposed something larger than a literary scandal: the beginning of the end of Russia’s ideological universe.
International Glance
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called for a complete end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – not just a pause in the fighting that has raged since February 2022 – ahead of US-Russia talks in Moscow centering on a peace plan aimed at ending Europe’s deadliest war since World War II.
The killing of two unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has provoked international outrage after video footage of the incident went viral on Friday.
The Israeli army on Monday again targeted several locations in southern Gaza that fell under the military-controlled yellow zone, according to local witnesses.
Ninety-one years ago this week, millions of Ukrainians starved to death while grain rotted in Soviet warehouses. Stalin’s regime seized their harvests, blocked aid, and watched them die. The Holodomor – “death by hunger” – was genocide: deliberate, calculated, and monstrous.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) called Sunday on the Trump administration to refocus its energy on defending Ukraine’s sovereignty in peace talks with Russia.





























