Author: Карабас Барабас

On September 4, 1921, in the midst of the XII Zionist Congress in Carlsbad, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky signed an agreement to create a Jewish gendarmerie in Ukraine. Symon Petliura was not at the negotiating table: the document was concluded by Jabotinsky and the head of the diplomatic mission of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Czechoslovakia, Maksym Slavinsky. The project did not envisage the participation of Jews in the war against the Red Army, but rather the armed protection of Jewish communities from possible pogroms.

Author: Victoria Katsman

The phrase “Jabotinsky signed a treaty with Petliura” outlived the document itself and almost overshadowed its content. It contains two problems. Jabotinsky and Petliura did not meet personally, and Petliura’s signature is not on the agreement. However, this does not mean that the agreement did not exist: by the fall of 1921, the leadership of the Ukrainian People’s Republic was already operating in exile, and its official diplomat Maksym Slavinsky conducted negotiations on behalf of the Ukrainian side.

At the same time, the Ukrainian People’s Republic still hoped to return to Ukraine by armed means. Under the political leadership of Symon Petliura, a new campaign against Soviet power was being prepared. A Partisan-Rebel Headquarters was created in Poland, headed by Yuriy Tyutyunnyk. The plan envisaged the crossing of UPR army groups over the border from Polish and Romanian territories, their joining with anti-Bolshevik rebels within Ukraine, and an attempt to spark a broader uprising. Special reliance was placed on local peasant and partisan formations already operating against the Bolsheviks.

That is why the agreement on the Jewish gendarmerie had a very specific practical meaning: if UPR troops re-entered Ukrainian towns and villages, a separate Jewish structure was to appear behind them, which would not participate in battles but would protect local Jewish communities from possible pogroms.

Equally important is the timing of these events. On September 4, the XII Zionist Congress was underway in Carlsbad — the first after World War I and after the Balfour Declaration. While the global Zionist leadership discussed the future of the Jewish national home in Palestine, the British mandate, aliyah, land, funding, and relations with the Arab population, Jabotinsky was simultaneously dealing with another issue: what would happen to the Jews of Ukraine if the UPR army indeed returned there and the UPR again became the official Ukrainian authority.

For NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, this story is interesting not as another attempt to decide whether Petliura was “good” or “bad.” The preserved documents allow for more specific questions: what exactly did Jabotinsky intend to create, why did he not want to leave the safety of Jews at the level of promises, and why did his agreement with the UPR representative cause a severe conflict within the Zionist movement itself.

September 4, 1921: the fourth day of the XII Zionist Congress

The previous World Zionist Congress took place back in 1913. Over the next eight years, World War I ended, the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires collapsed, Britain occupied Palestine, the Balfour Declaration appeared, and Eastern Europe went through revolutions, civil wars, and mass violence.

The XII Zionist Congress was held from September 1 to 14, 1921, in Carlsbad, then Czechoslovakia, now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. According to modern research, about 540 delegates from 42 countries participated, and about a thousand guests came to Carlsbad.

Among the most notable participants were:

• Chaim Weizmann — one of the main leaders of the Zionist movement, elected at this congress as president of the World Zionist Organization;
• Nahum Sokolow — chairman of the congress and one of the key representatives of Zionist diplomacy;
• Menachem Ussishkin — one of the leading figures of practical Zionism;
• Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky — congress delegate and future founder of Revisionist Zionism;
• Arthur Ruppin — one of the main organizers of Jewish settlement in Palestine;
• Chaim Nahman Bialik — the greatest Jewish poet;
• Martin Buber — philosopher and one of the most famous Jewish intellectuals of his time;
• Yitzhak Ben-Zvi — future second president of Israel;
• David Yellin — educator, public figure, and one of the leaders of the Jewish Yishuv.

An interesting photo collage of congress participants is preserved in the National Library of Israel. Weizmann is marked as No. 1, Sokolow as No. 2, Ussishkin as No. 3, Ruppin as No. 10, Jabotinsky as No. 13, Buber as No. 34, and Ben-Zvi as No. 380.

Jabotinsky was not on the periphery of Zionist politics at this time. At the XII Zionist Congress, he was re-elected to the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Organization. Therefore, negotiations with Slavinsky took place when Jabotinsky himself was part of the top leadership of the global Zionist movement.

Thus, when the agreement on the Jewish gendarmerie in Ukraine was discussed on September 4, Jabotinsky was not at a separate Ukrainian conference or on a secret political trip. He was in Carlsbad among the leaders of the global Zionist movement and participated in one of the main Jewish political events of that time.

Jabotinsky, Slavinsky, Petliura, and the UPR: who is who in this story

Not all readers are equally familiar with the history of the Zionist movement, the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and the politicians of the early 20th century. Therefore, before analyzing the agreement itself, let’s briefly remind who Vladimir Jabotinsky was, who Maksym Slavinsky was, what role Symon Petliura played, and what the UPR represented in 1921. Without this, some details of the Carlsbad agreement simply lose their meaning.

Who is Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky

Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was one of the major leaders of the Zionist movement in the first half of the 20th century, a journalist, writer, translator, politician, and ideologist of Jewish self-defense. He was born in Odessa, then the Russian Empire, today Ukraine, studied law in Italy and Switzerland, and gained fame as a Russian-speaking journalist and publicist in his youth.

A turning point for him was the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. After it, Jabotinsky finally linked his activities with Zionism and the organization of Jewish self-defense. In the same year, he participated in the VI Zionist Congress — the last congress attended by Theodor Herzl. Jabotinsky advocated for the development of Hebrew, the creation of Jewish national institutions, and the right of Jews to defend their communities.

During World War I, Jabotinsky, together with Joseph Trumpeldor, sought the creation of Jewish military units within the British army. Thus, the Jewish Legion was formed. Jabotinsky himself served in the British army with the rank of lieutenant and participated in the military campaign in Palestine against the Ottoman Empire.

In 1920, during the Arab riots in Jerusalem, Jabotinsky participated in organizing Jewish defense. The British authorities arrested him and sentenced him to a long imprisonment, but after public pressure, he was amnestied and released from Acre prison.

By the time of the events in Carlsbad, Jabotinsky was already at the center of Zionist politics. In 1921, he joined the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Organization, was one of the figures of Keren Hayesod, and at the XII Zionist Congress was re-elected to the Zionist leadership.

Later, his political path would sharply diverge from Chaim Weizmann’s line. In 1923, Jabotinsky would create the youth movement Betar, and in 1925, the Union of Revisionist Zionists. He would become the founder of the direction known as Revisionist Zionism, demanding a more active struggle for mass aliyah, the creation of Jewish military power, and the openly proclaimed goal of creating a Jewish state.

For the modern Israeli reader, it is important to understand Jabotinsky’s political legacy. It is from the Revisionist tradition that Betar, Etzel, the Herut movement of Menachem Begin, and a significant part of the ideological tradition of the modern Israeli right-wing camp later emerged. Menachem Begin himself was the leader of Betar in Poland in his youth.

Jabotinsky died in 1940 in the USA while visiting a Betar camp. In his will, he asked to transfer his remains to Eretz Israel only by order of a future Jewish government. This happened in 1964 by decision of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol: Jabotinsky and his wife Joanna were reburied on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Therefore, the person who discussed the creation of a Jewish gendarmerie with a Ukrainian diplomat on September 4, 1921, was not a random public activist. By that time, Jabotinsky already had his own experience in organizing Jewish self-defense and Jewish military units. This helps to understand why the idea of an armed structure to protect the Jews of Ukraine was quite consistent with his political logic.

Who is Maksym Slavinsky

Maksym Slavinsky (1868–1945) was not a random intermediary tasked with talking to Jabotinsky. He was a notable figure in the Ukrainian national movement of the early 20th century — a lawyer, journalist, translator, politician, and diplomat.

He was born in Stavyshche in the Kyiv region, graduated from the law and historical-philological faculties of Kyiv University, worked in the press, and was closely connected with the Ukrainian cultural environment even before the revolution. Together with Lesya Ukrainka, Slavinsky translated Heinrich Heine’s works into Ukrainian.

After the revolution, his activities were directly related to Ukrainian statehood. In 1917, Slavinsky represented the Central Rada at the Provisional Government in Petrograd. In 1918, he participated in negotiations with Soviet Russia, worked in the foreign policy system of the Ukrainian state, and for some time held the post of Minister of Labor.

Under the Directorate of the UPR, Slavinsky headed the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Czechoslovakia. His task was to seek international support for the UPR, develop relations with Czechoslovakia, and seek political and military assistance for the Ukrainian government. Slavinsky personally knew the President of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Masaryk, since 1911.

Therefore, in Carlsbad, Jabotinsky was not talking to a private emigrant or a person who had arbitrarily declared himself a representative of Petliura. He was facing the head of the official diplomatic mission of the UPR, who had many years of political experience.

Jabotinsky and Slavinsky were also acquainted long before 1921. Slavinsky called Jabotinsky an old good friend; even before World War I, both were associated with the newspaper “Russian News.” Therefore, the negotiations in Carlsbad did not begin between two people meeting for the first time at the Zionist Congress.

In his own report, compiled on September 16, 1921, Slavinsky described in detail the course of contacts with Jabotinsky, the participants of the meetings, the proposed further work, and the financial scheme of the future gendarmerie. This document allows us to reconstruct the negotiations in much more detail today than is evident from the brief text of the agreement itself.

After the mission was liquidated in 1923, Slavinsky remained in Czechoslovakia and taught history and literature in Ukrainian emigrant educational institutions. In May 1945, after the arrival of Soviet troops in Prague, he was arrested by SMERSH. The 76-year-old Slavinsky was taken to Kyiv, where he died in Lukyanivska prison.

Who is Symon Petliura

Symon Petliura (1879–1926) was born in Poltava to Vasyl and Olha Petliura and was the sixth of 11 children. The family came from Poltava townspeople of Cossack origin. Petliura first studied at a parish school, then at the Poltava Theological Seminary, from which he was expelled in 1901 due to his involvement in the Ukrainian national movement.

From a young age, he was involved in politics and journalism, was a member of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, worked as a teacher, accountant, publicist, and editor.

His wife, Olha Petliura, née Belska, was a teacher and later participated in the life of the Ukrainian emigration. The couple had a daughter, Lesya Petliura, born in 1911. She wrote poetry and died in 1941 from tuberculosis.

After the 1917 revolution, Petliura quickly found himself among the leaders of the Ukrainian national movement. He was involved in creating Ukrainian armed forces, was the general secretary of military affairs, and then became the Chief Ataman of the UPR army and one of the leaders of the Directorate of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. His political goal was an independent Ukraine and the fight against Bolshevik Russia.

After the military defeat of the UPR, Petliura continued to lead Ukrainian political and military structures in exile. That is why in 1921, his government maintained diplomatic missions abroad, including Slavinsky’s mission in Czechoslovakia.

For Jewish history, Petliura remains an extremely controversial figure due to the mass pogroms of 1918–1920. There is no evidence that he personally ordered pogroms, and the UPR leadership issued orders against anti-Semitic violence. However, as the head of political power and the army, Petliura remains associated with the question of responsibility for the failure to stop the mass killings of Jews and the fact that not all perpetrators were punished.

On May 25, 1926, Petliura was shot in Paris by Sholom Schwartzbard, who claimed to be avenging the Jews who died during the pogroms. In the 1927 trial, a French jury acquitted Schwartzbard.

In modern Ukraine, Petliura is primarily honored as one of the leaders of the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state and one of the creators of the Ukrainian army of the early 20th century. In 2026, the centenary of his death was included in the state calendar of memorable dates by the Verkhovna Rada.

His name is also used in the modern Ukrainian military tradition: the 152nd Separate Ranger Brigade of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine bears the name of Symon Petliura.

Therefore, for the Israeli reader, it is important to understand the duality of his image: in Ukrainian historical memory, Petliura is primarily a symbol of the struggle for statehood and resistance to Bolshevik Russia; in Jewish memory, his name is inseparable from the tragedy of pogroms and the question of government responsibility for mass violence.

What is the Ukrainian People’s Republic

The Ukrainian People’s Republic, UPR was a Ukrainian state that emerged after the 1917 revolution on the territory of the former Russian Empire.

Initially, the UPR was proclaimed as an autonomous republic, and on January 22, 1918, it declared full independence.

Over the next few years, the UPR experienced war with the Bolsheviks, German and Austro-Hungarian presence, a change of power to the Ukrainian state of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, and the subsequent restoration of the republic by the Directorate.

During this period, Ukraine became the arena of several wars. Forces of the UPR, Bolsheviks, White armies, Polish troops, independent ataman formations, and other armed groups operated on its territory. Against the backdrop of the collapse of state power and constant changes in the front, mass Jewish pogroms also occurred.

By 1921, the UPR no longer controlled the territory of Ukraine. After defeat in the war with the Bolsheviks, its leadership, army structures, and diplomatic representations continued to operate in exile — primarily in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

At the same time, the UPR leadership did not abandon plans for an armed return to Ukraine. In 1921, under the initiative of Symon Petliura, preparations for a new campaign were underway: it was assumed that UPR army detachments would cross the border, join anti-Bolshevik insurgent forces within Ukraine, and attempt to raise a broader uprising against Soviet power.

This circumstance is crucial for understanding the Jabotinsky-Slavinsky agreement. It was not an agreement with the current government in Kyiv. Soviet power was already in Kyiv. Slavinsky represented the government of the UPR in exile, which continued to consider itself the legitimate Ukrainian government and hoped for a new armed campaign and return to Ukraine.

It was under such a scenario that the project of the Jewish gendarmerie was created: if the UPR army re-entered Ukrainian territory, a separate Jewish structure capable of protecting local Jewish communities from possible pogroms was to appear behind it.

What the XII Zionist Congress decided and why Ukraine was alongside Palestine

The official agenda of the Carlsbad Congress was far from Ukrainian politics. The Zionist movement was deciding how to move from the diplomatic success of the Balfour Declaration to the practical construction of a Jewish national home.

Discussions included the British mandate for Palestine, the international legal consolidation of the provision on the Jewish national home, immigration, land acquisition, settlement development, the creation of their own institutions, and the financing of this entire process.

Chaim Weizmann was elected president of the World Zionist Organization. Great attention was paid to Keren Hayesod, created a year earlier and becoming one of the most important financial mechanisms of Zionist construction.

After the Arab riots in the spring of 1921, including the bloody events in Jaffa, relations with the Arab population and the policy of the British administration became a separate painful topic.

Within the Zionist movement, there were different approaches. Some leaders focused primarily on political agreements and cautious interaction with London. Jabotinsky increasingly returned to the issue of Jewish military power and the ability to defend themselves.

A few months before Carlsbad, he sought the restoration of a Jewish military formation in Palestine. For a person associated with the creation of the Jewish Legion, self-defense was not an abstract theory: if the existing authority could not guarantee the safety of Jews, Jews themselves should have an organized force for their protection.

And in Carlsbad, two realities were side by side. In the congress hall, the future of the Jewish national center in Palestine was discussed. Outside the official agenda, Jabotinsky discussed with Slavinsky the fate of the Jews of Eastern Europe, who, after several years of wars and pogroms, remained practically defenseless.

Jabotinsky and Slavinsky were not random acquaintances. They knew each other long before 1921. Slavinsky called Jabotinsky an old good friend; even before World War I, both were associated with the newspaper “Russian News.”

The Ukrainian theme was also long present in Jabotinsky’s political views. In the NAnews material about Jabotinsky and Ukraine, we have already analyzed his attitude towards the Ukrainian language, the Ukrainian national movement, and the right of Ukrainians to independent political existence.

Later, Jabotinsky would significantly diverge from Weizmann and the leadership of the Zionist movement. In the NAnews article “Jabotinsky against Putin”, we wrote about another part of his political legacy — the rejection of Russification and the idea of Ukrainians as part of a single Russian people.

Petliura was not in Carlsbad

Symon Petliura did not sign the agreement on September 4 and was not present at its conclusion. Moreover, Jabotinsky later explicitly wrote that he did not personally know Petliura, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, or other leading leaders of the Ukrainian government.

Therefore, the expression “Jabotinsky’s agreement with Petliura” is convenient but historically inaccurate shorthand. Jabotinsky’s direct partner was Maksym Slavinsky, the official representative of the UPR government in exile.

But the opposite version, that Slavinsky signed some private paper unrelated to the Ukrainian leadership, does not correspond to the documents. His own report shows the negotiations as part of the UPR’s political work and preparation for a possible return of the Ukrainian army.

This complex issue was analyzed in more detail by NAnews in the material about Petliura, Jewish memory, and Ukrainian independence.

Before the agreement: the UPR’s appeal to the XII Zionist Congress

A few days before the signing of the agreement on the Jewish gendarmerie, the Ukrainian diplomatic mission attempted to directly appeal to the global Zionist movement.

On August 29, 1921, Maksym Slavinsky and the secretary of the UPR mission in Czechoslovakia, Olherd-Ippolit Bochkovsky, signed an official letter to the XII Zionist Congress. It is preserved in the published stenographic protocol of the congress as a separate document. Researchers have not been able to find the original copy of the letter.

On September 1, the first day of the congress, the letter was read to the delegates by Vladimir Jabotinsky — in French. This is separately noted by the editor of the academic publication.

In the appeal, the Ukrainian mission drew a parallel between the Ukrainian and Jewish national movements. It spoke of millions of Jews living in Ukraine and directly acknowledged that in previous years they had suffered severe persecution. At the same time, Slavinsky rejected the responsibility of the Ukrainian people as a whole, blaming “irresponsible elements,” and declared the Ukrainians’ desire to live with Jews in cooperation and restore peace in the country.

In his report dated September 16, 1921, Slavinsky wrote that even before the congress, he had handed over the materials available to the Ukrainian mission to Jabotinsky and discussed with him how to change the extremely negative attitude of the Jewish public towards the Ukrainian movement after the pogroms. It was during these contacts, he said, that the idea of a Jewish gendarmerie arose.

Slavinsky also claimed another important thing: a group of Eastern European, British, and American Zionists was going to name the UPR government and army as the main culprits of mass violence when discussing the pogroms. According to Slavinsky himself, his explanations and Jabotinsky’s informational work helped stop this initiative. This is his own assessment of the outcome of the negotiations, not the conclusion of an independent congress protocol.

Thus, even before the agreement on September 4, the Ukrainian side was solving two tasks in Carlsbad: trying to change the international Jewish movement’s attitude towards the UPR and simultaneously negotiating a practical mechanism for protecting Jews in case the UPR army returned to Ukraine.

The appeal itself is published as Document 10 on pages 140–142 of the academic collection; immediately after it is Document 11 — the agreement on the Jewish gendarmerie dated September 4, 1921.

main text of the appeal:

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/gdc/gdcebookspublic/20/20/71/91/57/2020719157/2020719157.pdf#page=142

How the negotiations went and what exactly the Jewish gendarmerie was supposed to be

Who participated in the negotiations

The agreement did not arise from one meeting on the evening of September 4. According to Slavinsky’s report, he visited Carlsbad on August 29, 30, and 31, and then on September 3 and 4, 1921.

On August 30, a conference was held between Slavinsky and Jabotinsky, attended by the Ukrainian diplomat Roman Smal-Stotsky, associated with the UPR representation in Berlin.

Further negotiations took place on September 3 and 4 without Smal-Stotsky.

Ukrainian diplomacy was trying to solve not only the issue of the gendarmerie. After the pogroms, the attitude of a significant part of the Jewish world towards the UPR was extremely difficult. Slavinsky handed over Ukrainian materials to Jabotinsky and prepared a greeting for the XII Zionist Congress, which was announced on the first day of the congress.

In this appeal, the Ukrainian mission acknowledged that the Jews of Ukraine had experienced terrible persecution in previous years, while simultaneously rejecting the collective responsibility of the Ukrainian people and declaring a desire for Ukrainian-Jewish cooperation.

At the last conference, when the draft agreement was finally agreed upon, British Colonel John Henry Patterson was present — the former commander of the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, one of the units of the Jewish Legion, in the creation of which Jabotinsky participated.

Slavinsky wrote that Patterson supported the project and promised assistance. However, the British officer was not a party to the agreement, and his signature is not on the agreement. Modern researchers also consider Slavinsky’s assessment exaggerated, as if Patterson at that time had significant influence on the British military and foreign policy leadership: he left active military service back in 1920.

Where and when the signatures were placed

The agreement was signed on September 4, 1921, in Karlsbad, now Karlovy Vary, at the Olympic-Palast-Hotel.

This place is directly indicated in the preserved text of the document. However, known sources do not specify the exact hotel room number or the name of the hall where the final signing took place, so there is no basis to assert such details.

Only two people signed the agreement:

• Maxim Slavinsky — from the diplomatic structure of the UNR;
• Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky — from the Jewish side.

On the preserved Ukrainian copy, after the signatures, there is another archival detail — a note confirming the document “for the head of the Directorate’s office” and an illegible signature. Modern publishers of the document have not been able to establish the name of this official.

This entry shows the document passing through the UNR structure but does not prove that the unknown official was personally present at the Olympic-Palast-Hotel during the signing.

Under what condition the gendarmerie was supposed to appear at all

The document consisted of seven main points and an additional condition. It was already a fairly specific project, but not the final charter of a ready formation. The number, internal structure, supply, and some other technical issues were to be the subject of subsequent agreements.

The entire project was tied to a specific scenario: the UNR army re-enters the territory of Ukraine and occupies cities and towns.

It was precisely after it that the temporary Jewish gendarmerie as part of the state gendarmerie of the UNR was supposed to move.

Its special task was called the protection of the Jewish population in the settlements occupied by Ukrainian troops. According to point 7, it was supposed to follow along with the Ukrainian state gendarmerie directly behind the army, in the rear zone, and begin to perform its task immediately after occupying a settlement with a Jewish population.

Practically, the scheme looked like this: UNR troops enter the city, followed by the state gendarmerie, and with it — a specially created Jewish unit, whose task is to prevent pogroms, robberies, and other violence against local Jews.

It was forbidden to fight against the Red Army

The second point of the agreement established a fundamental restriction: the Jewish gendarmerie was not to participate in military actions.

Therefore, presenting the project as the creation of a “Jewish legion of Petliura for the war against the Bolsheviks” is incorrect.

The political context was undoubtedly anti-Bolshevik. The emigration leadership of the UNR hoped to return to Ukraine by armed means, and without such a campaign, the entire gendarmerie project lost practical meaning.

But the Jewish gendarmes themselves were not supposed to participate in battles with the Red Army, advance on cities, or conquer territory. Their work began after the settlement was already occupied by Ukrainian troops.

Who was supposed to recruit people

The unit was not to be formed by the UNR army independently or by the World Zionist Organization.

Point 3 of the agreement spoke of a special Jewish organization that was supposed to handle recruitment and be responsible for the recruited people.

At the same time, the document contained a direct political filter: communists were prohibited from being accepted into the Jewish gendarmerie.

A fairly clear boundary emerged. The unit did not participate in the war with the Bolsheviks, but people politically connected with the UNR’s opponent were not intended to be accepted into this formation.

The agreement itself did not define the number of the gendarmerie, there was no ready list of units or a final list of settlements where they were to be stationed. This was left for the next stage of negotiations.

A Jew was supposed to command

The agreement separately fixed the origin of the future head of the unit.

At the head of the Jewish gendarmerie was to stand a Jewish commander, whose candidacy was to be agreed upon between the special Jewish organization and the supreme command of the UNR army.

That is, the Ukrainian leadership could not simply appoint its own officer as the head of the “Jewish gendarmerie”. But the Jewish side also did not receive the right to appoint the commander unilaterally.

The formation was included in the state system of the UNR, while retaining its own Jewish leadership.

To whom the commander was subordinate

On general order issues, the commander of the Jewish gendarmerie was to be subordinate to the head of the Ukrainian state gendarmerie.

But on his main special task — protecting the Jewish population — he was given the opportunity to appeal directly to the Chief of Staff of the UNR army or to the official to whom all the gendarmerie was subordinate in a specific military situation.

This created a direct channel upwards, bypassing the usual local chain of command.

Such a construction made understandable sense. If the local military or gendarmerie leadership itself participated in violence or refused to stop it, the Jewish commander should not have been completely dependent on this same leadership.

What legal rights the gendarmerie received

The project did not envisage the creation of a private armed squad without official status.

Jewish gendarmes were to receive all the rights of the Ukrainian state gendarmerie. At the same time, they were subject to the same laws and bore the same responsibility for their actions as Ukrainian gendarmes.

In essence, it was an attempt to legalize armed Jewish self-defense within the state system of the UNR.

Where exactly it was supposed to operate

The document did not contain a ready list of cities — Kyiv, Odessa, Zhytomyr, Proskuriv, Vinnytsia, or other settlements.

Instead, a general principle was established: the gendarmerie was to start work immediately after the UNR troops occupied a settlement with a Jewish population.

The specific territory and functions were to be determined by a special plan.

Moreover, this plan was to be developed by the commander of the Jewish gendarmerie himself, after which it was approved by the UNR General Staff. Within the approved plan, the activities of the Jewish gendarmerie were to be autonomous.

The scheme looked unusual: the Jewish commander develops the plan, the UNR General Staff approves it, after which the Jewish unit independently operates within the limits set by this plan.

What guarantees the Ukrainian command had to give

An additional condition was added to the seven main points of the agreement.

The supreme command of the UNR army was to reaffirm the unconditional inadmissibility of any repressions against the Jewish and Christian populations.

The prohibition also extended to revenge for events that occurred before the arrival of the UNR army. This was of great importance in the conditions of civil war, when local residents could be accused of collaborating with the Bolsheviks, supporting another army, or participating in events that occurred before the return of Ukrainian troops.

The agreement attempted to exclude the possibility of collective punishment under the pretext of retribution in advance.

Cases of violence were to be referred to a military court. Its composition, “if possible”, was to include representatives of both the Christian and Jewish populations.

Here it is important to maintain accuracy: the document did not guarantee mandatory equal representation of the two communities in each court. A more cautious wording was used — the participation of representatives of both sides was envisaged if possible.

Who was supposed to pay for the gendarmerie

The financial scheme is detailed not in the seven points of the agreement itself, but in the report of Maxim Slavinsky, compiled in Prague on September 16, 1921.

The preparation of the project was to be paid for by a special Jewish organization outside the World Zionist Organization.

But from the moment the Jewish gendarmerie entered the territory of Ukraine, the expenses shifted to the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

Before entering Ukraine — expenses of the Jewish organization; after entering Ukraine — expenses of the UNR.

Slavinsky’s report also clarifies why the structure was deliberately taken outside the World Zionist Organization. The Zionist movement united people with completely different political views, including groups close to the communists. No one intended to turn the entire World Zionist Organization into an official participant in the agreement with the anti-Bolshevik government of the UNR.

What else was not determined on September 4

Jabotinsky and Slavinsky did not sign a fully formed unit’s charter. They recorded a principled agreement of seven points and an addition.

At the end of the document, both pledged to immediately use the opportunities available to them — each “in their sphere of influence” — for the practical implementation of the project. But it was also noted there that technical details should become the subject of further agreements.

As of September 4, the following were not yet finally determined:

• the number of the Jewish gendarmerie;
• its complete internal structure;
• specific locations;
• the full composition of the command;
• the exact schedule of formation;
• details of supply and organization.

Slavinsky himself, twelve days later, called the signed document a “principled project” and assumed that further negotiations would be conducted by representatives of the special Jewish organization and responsible representatives of the UNR.

In the end, the meaning of the project was quite unambiguous: Jabotinsky sought not the participation of Jews in the UNR’s war against the Bolsheviks, but the legal formalization of armed Jewish self-defense. After the experience of pogroms, he wanted to receive from the Ukrainian side not another promise of protection, but a mechanism allowing Jews themselves to participate in ensuring the safety of their communities.

Why the agreement caused a scandal and why the project was never implemented

In 1918–1920, the territory of Ukraine became one of the main spaces of mass anti-Jewish violence in Eastern Europe.

Pogroms were committed by various forces: units associated with the Directorate of the UNR, independent ataman formations, White armies, parts of the Red Army, and other armed groups.

For Jewish families, the affiliation of the murderers to one political side or another often changed little in the result.

The name Petliura occupied a special place in Jewish historical memory because he headed the Directorate and the UNR army. The debate continues around the degree of his personal guilt, real control over individual formations, orders against pogroms, and the effectiveness of punishing the guilty. But the scale of the violence itself and the question of the political responsibility of the country’s leadership do not disappear because of this.

This background is well visible in the history of the Proskuriv pogrom, about which NAnews wrote in the material about the mass grave of its victims.

For people who survived such events, negotiations with a government representative associated with the name Petliura were no longer just a diplomatic combination. For part of the Jewish society, it became a moral issue.

When information about the agreement began to spread, a serious conflict began around Jabotinsky. The archive of the Jabotinsky Institute preserved materials about consultations during the Karlsbad Congress, the reaction of the press and Zionist organizations, demands for his resignation in the USA and Great Britain, and the subsequent discussion of the agreement in the governing bodies of the Zionist movement.

At the same time, the reaction of the Jewish world was not unanimous. Part of the Russian-Ukrainian Zionist circles in Berlin viewed Jabotinsky’s actions differently than his opponents in Poland, the USA, and the left wing of Zionism.

The conflict survived the year 1921 itself. In January 1923, already against the backdrop of a significantly broader political confrontation with Weizmann and his supporters, Jabotinsky left the Executive Committee and the World Zionist Organization.

His own logic of the project remained quite consistent: if the UNR troops re-enter Ukraine, another order “not to arrange pogroms” was not enough. An official armed Jewish structure with legal powers and its own command was needed.

Why the gendarmerie never appeared

Practically, the agreement was not implemented in time.

In the fall of 1921, the UNR forces undertook the Second Winter Campaign — the last major attempt at an armed return to Ukraine.

The campaign ended in defeat. After the defeat of the Volyn group and the execution of captured Ukrainian servicemen near Bazar, the prospect of a serious return of the UNR army to the territory of Ukraine became even less realistic.

Therefore, the assertion that the Jewish gendarmerie project failed due to Petliura’s assassination in Paris in 1926 poorly corresponds to the chronology. Almost five years passed between the agreement and Petliura’s assassination.

The project was designed for a new campaign of the UNR army, and it was precisely this military scenario that practically collapsed by the end of 1921.

Petliura’s assassination and Jabotinsky’s late position

The political dispute did not end there.

On May 25, 1926, Sholom Schwartzbard shot Simon Petliura in Paris, claiming revenge for the Jews who died during the pogroms. In the subsequent trial, the question of Petliura’s responsibility was at the center of international attention, and Jabotinsky’s agreement with Slavinsky again became one of the arguments in the discussion.

Jabotinsky’s position did not fit into either the formula “he completely justified Petliura” or the opposite — “he considered Petliura the organizer of the pogroms”.

In 1926, Jabotinsky wrote that he did not personally know Petliura and did not consider the leading figures of the Ukrainian national movement of that type to be conscious ideological anti-Semites.

However, in 1927 he returned to the question of responsibility and drew a much stricter line: the head of the government and the army bears political responsibility for pogroms occurring under his rule if the guilty do not receive due punishment.

Jabotinsky distinguished between personal anti-Semitism, direct organization of violence, and the responsibility of a political leader. A person might not give the order to kill Jews and not be a convinced anti-Semite, but the position of head of state and commander-in-chief still meant responsibility for the actions of the army and the state’s reaction to crimes.

The Karlsbad agreement fits well with this logic. Jabotinsky did not assume that the Ukrainian authorities should be taken at their word. He tried to integrate into the possible return of the UNR a separate armed mechanism for the protection of Jews.

And this happened in the same days when the XII Zionist Congress in Karlsbad was discussing a completely different historical direction — turning the Balfour Declaration into the practical construction of a Jewish national home, aliyah, Keren Hayesod, land policy, relations with Britain and the Arab population.

For NAnews — News of Israel, the connection of these two plots makes September 4, 1921, an important date.

Jabotinsky was simultaneously at the center of the world Zionist movement, engaged in the future of Palestine, and trying to solve the issue of the physical security of the Jews of Ukraine.

Where today you can see the 1921 document itself

The history of the Jabotinsky and Slawinsky agreement is based not only on later recollections and historians’ retellings. The text was published back in 1921.

On December 23, 1921, the German-language Zionist newspaper Jüdische Rundschau published an article titled “Jabotinskys Verhandlungen mit Petljuras Vertreter” — “Jabotinsky’s Negotiations with Petlyura’s Representative”.

In the same issue, Maxim Slawinsky’s report on the negotiations was printed, and below it, the text of the agreement itself under the title “Abkommen”.

The original issue of the newspaper is now digitized and available in the digital collection of the University of Frankfurt library.

In Jüdische Rundschau No. 102/103 from December 23, 1921, the material is located on newspaper page 732. In the digital PDF, it is the sixth page of the file.

Open the original scan of Jüdische Rundschau from December 23, 1921

We have also preserved a copy of this issue on the NANovosti website:

Jüdische Rundschau No. 102/103 from December 23, 1921 — PDF

The scan shows the beginning of the agreement text:

“Abkommen. Uebersetzung: Am 4. September … 1921 in der Stadt Karlsbad im Hotel Olympic-Palast-Hotel…”

At the end of the document, the names Maxim Slawinskyj and Wolodymyr Jabotinsky are indicated, and between the beginning and the signatures, the points about the future Jewish gendarmerie are published.

This is especially important for the debate about whether such an agreement “existed at all.” Before us is not a modern reconstruction or a retelling of events a hundred years later, but a newspaper publication from December 1921 — the same year the negotiations took place.

But the original original has not yet been found

At the same time, it is necessary to make an important archival note. The German text in Jüdische Rundschau is marked as a translation.

The Ukrainian typewritten copy of the agreement is preserved in the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. In archival references, it is listed as RG 80/134/10332–10332a. The related copy with Slawinsky’s report from September 16, 1921, is listed as RG 80/134/10333–10333a.

The full text of the academic publication, which includes the Jabotinsky and Slawinsky agreement from September 4, 1921, can be opened here: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/gdc/gdcebookspublic/20/20/71/91/57/2020719157/2020719157.pdf. (page 142) Below we separately provide the fragment where Document 11 begins — the agreement on the creation of a Jewish gendarmerie in Ukraine, — as well as the YIVO archival references to the preserved Ukrainian typewritten copies of the document.

Here it is:

Jabotinsky and Petlyura: what happened on September 4, 1921, at the XII Zionist Congress and why a Jewish gendarmerie was created to protect the Jews of Ukraine

Researchers suggest that the very first copy of the agreement might have been drafted in Russian or French, but this original text has not yet been found.

A separate array of documents is stored in the Jabotinsky Institute in Israel. There are materials of the negotiations with Slawinsky, documents about the Jewish gendarmerie project, discussions of the agreement in connection with the Karlsbad Congress, press reactions, and materials of subsequent internal union polemics.

Therefore, the history can be verified immediately by several archival traces: the 1921 Jüdische Rundschau publication, YIVO materials, and the Jabotinsky Institute archive.

One can argue about the political meaning of the agreement, Jabotinsky’s motives, the attitude towards Petlyura, the responsibility of the UNR leadership, or the consequences of the pogroms. But the very existence of the document, its date, place of conclusion, names of the signatories, and the main conditions of the future Jewish gendarmerie are verified directly from the 1921 sources.

On October 8, 2026, the sixth meeting of the third season of the project “THEATROTHERAPY” will take place at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv. This time, participants will discuss the development of modern Ukrainian theater — from the first years of independence to the stage that changed after the Maidan and the full-scale Russian invasion.

Author: Anton Pshydynskyi

The meeting is organized by MAK_UA / Ukrainian Art Amateur Forge in Israel. The event will take place on October 8, 2026, at 20:00 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv, located at 22 Yermiyahu St.. Participation fee — 50 shekels.

The previous meeting of the project was dedicated to the “Executed Renaissance” — Ukrainian directors, playwrights, and actors whose work was targeted by Soviet repressions. Now the organizers propose to look at what happened next: how Ukrainian theater gradually regained its independence and its own language.

After the declaration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991, theatrical life no longer had to exist solely within the framework of the Soviet state system. Independent groups, new directing schools, and forms of work emerged that were previously either almost absent or existed on the periphery of the official stage.

At the meeting, they plan to talk about documentary theater, performance, physical theater, and verbatim. The latter term may not be very familiar to the Israeli audience: it is a form of documentary theater where the play is built on real people’s speech — interviews, testimonies, and recorded conversations, with authors striving to preserve the features of live speech.

A separate topic is Maidan, meaning the events of the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014. For Ukrainian culture, it turned out to be not only a political turning point. Theater became one of the spaces where war, identity, social trauma, memory, and responsibility were discussed.

This process changed even more after February 24, 2022. War literally entered Ukrainian theater: performances based on the testimonies of soldiers and refugees appeared, productions about destroyed cities, occupation, emigration, and the lives of families divided by borders.

But the meeting in Tel Aviv is not intended as an academic lecture.

Participants will be offered theatrical exercises, improvisation, work with voice, body, and emotions. The organizers promise experiments and live communication — an opportunity not only to hear about modern theater but also to try some of its tools on oneself.

That is why the name “Theatrotherapy” should be understood more broadly than a regular theater club. It is a space where theater is used simultaneously as a way of getting acquainted with culture, communication, and exploring one’s own reactions.

For the Ukrainian community in Israel, such meetings have another meaning. The culture, which after February 2022 was physically scattered between Kyiv, Lviv, Warsaw, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and dozens of other cities, continues to exist far beyond Ukraine. NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency regularly reports on such Ukrainian cultural initiatives in Israel precisely because today it is already a noticeable part of the local cultural life.

The organizers emphasize: theatrical experience is not required for participants. All that is needed is an interest in the topic and a willingness to step outside the usual format of “lecturer speaks — audience listens” for a few hours.

The main question of the evening sounds much broader than the history of individual theaters or directors: what is Ukrainian theater today — and what can it become tomorrow?

As stated in the event announcement, the meeting is held with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Israel.

When: October 8, 2026, 20:00
Where: Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv, 22 Yermiyahu St.
Cost: 50 shekels
Organizer: MAK_UA / Ukrainian Art Amateur Forge in Israel
Event page: Facebook Events

On October 4, 2001, a Tu-154 of Sibir Airlines, flying from Ben Gurion Airport to Novosibirsk, was lost over the Black Sea. An international technical investigation concluded that the aircraft was hit by a Ukrainian S-200 missile during exercises. All 78 people on board died, including 51 Israeli citizens.

25 years later, Russian media are revisiting this story, often recalling the words of then-President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma: “Don’t make a tragedy out of this.” These words were indeed spoken. But the story of flight 1812 does not end there: after initial denials, the Ukrainian leadership acknowledged the aircraft was hit by its missile, apologized to Israel and Russia, and Ukraine later paid $15.4 million to the families of the victims. However, legal responsibility in interstate agreements was specifically excluded, and years later, a Ukrainian forensic examination challenged the conclusion that the aircraft was hit by a missile.

Author: R.Verter

On October 4, 2026, it was exactly 25 years since the Tu-154 disaster over the Black Sea. In Russian publications, it is often referred to as the story of the “Novosibirsk plane” shot down by Ukraine.

Formally, it’s clear why: the flight was headed to Novosibirsk, the airline and crew were Russian.

But from Israel, this story looks different. The plane departed from Ben Gurion, most of the passengers were Israeli citizens, and an ordinary festive flight for dozens of families ended in the deep waters of the Black Sea.

Flight 1812 began at Ben Gurion

On October 4, 2001, a Tu-154M with registration number RA-85693 of Sibir Airlines, later becoming S7, was operating flight 1812 from Ben Gurion Airport to Novosibirsk.

On board were 66 passengers and 12 crew members — a total of 78 people. No one survived.

Among the passengers were 51 Israeli citizens and 15 Russian citizens. Many Israelis were immigrants from the former USSR and were flying to Siberia to visit relatives during the Sukkot holiday.

In the morning, they arrived at Ben Gurion, went through the usual airport procedures, and set off to their families. A few hours later, contact with the plane was lost.

What the IAC established

The main technical document of the investigation was the final report of the Interstate Aviation Committee — IAC.

For the Israeli reader, let us explain: the IAC was created after the collapse of the USSR and dealt with the investigation of aviation incidents in several former Soviet republics.

According to the commission’s findings, the Tu-154 was flying along international route B-145 at an altitude of about 11,100 meters and was hit by the warhead 5B14Sh of the 5V28 missile of the S-200V complex.

The S-200 is a Soviet long-range anti-aircraft missile system. It is not a portable weapon but a full-fledged air defense system with a ground launch installation, radar tracking, and calculation.

According to the IAC version, the missile was launched by a Ukrainian air defense unit during training firing from a position in Crimea near Feodosia. The commission concluded that the radar system of the complex tracked the passenger plane until the warhead detonated.

The striking elements pierced the fuselage of the Tu-154. Depressurization occurred, local fires broke out, the plane lost control, and fell into the Black Sea.

Thus, the technical investigation did not stop at the assumption of a possible missile. The report named specific missile type, warhead, and launch area.

Exercises were held in Crimea

At the time of the disaster, large-scale air defense exercises with live firing were taking place in Crimea.

The firing was conducted in the area of the Opuk training ground. At that time, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was also in Crimea, and the infrastructure of the training ground and the organization of the exercises existed within the framework of the then-close Ukrainian-Russian military cooperation.

This context is important for understanding the organization of the firing, but it does not change the main conclusion of the IAC: the S-200 missile, according to the commission, was launched by a Ukrainian air defense unit.

What happened at sea after the fall

Ben Gurion — Black Sea — Novosibirsk.

This geography is especially important for Israel.

The search operation unfolded about 180 kilometers from the Sochi area. After the fall, the Tu-154 disintegrated, and a significant part of the plane, along with the deceased, sank to a depth of about two kilometers.

That is why rescuers physically could not simply descend to the fuselage and lift the people inside.

They primarily searched for what remained on the water’s surface or was brought there after the plane’s destruction: small debris, interior elements, clothing, open suitcases, personal belongings, bodies, and separate human remains.

The current quickly spread the finds over a large area.

The area was combed by rescue ships and helicopters. At one stage, 11 ships and more than 400 rescuers participated in the operation. A remotely operated underwater vehicle was also used to search for large fragments and flight recorders.

However, a full-fledged operation at a depth of about two kilometers to lift the main part of the liner was not possible. The flight recorders were not found either.

Therefore, of the 78 deceased, only about 15 bodies and separate human remains were found. These were mainly those deceased or their remains that did not sink with the main mass of debris after the plane’s destruction.

By October 10, 14 of the found deceased were identified.

Most passengers and crew members remained deep underwater.

Specialists and about a hundred relatives arrived from Israel

Israel almost immediately joined the operation.

An Israeli Air Force Hercules transport aircraft delivered a group of Israeli military personnel and police to Russia, who helped with the identification of the deceased and interacted with Russian services.

Following a special flight, about a hundred relatives of the passengers arrived in the Sochi area.

Of course, they did not go out to sea. They were invited to identify the found deceased, clothing, and personal belongings, and were asked to describe special features. If visual identification was insufficient, additional information from relatives and DNA samples were used.

For most, this trip ended without the opportunity to take a loved one home: among those raised from the sea, their relatives were not found.

Of the 51 deceased Israeli citizens, only the remains of seven passengers were returned to Israel. They were delivered on October 10, 2001.

For the remaining families, the bodies of their loved ones were never found.

On October 11, an official day of mourning was held in Israel. Flags were lowered on government buildings, the Knesset held a special mourning session, and funerals were held for those whose remains were returned.

Relatives also held a memorial ceremony at the Black Sea — over the place that for dozens of families effectively became the only possible grave.

Initially, Kyiv denied involvement

In the first days, the Ukrainian leadership denied the possibility that the passenger plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile.

On October 8, Leonid Kuchma said that technically such an option seemed impossible, although all versions needed to be investigated. Ukrainian military also claimed that the missiles fired during the exercises could not have reached the Tu-154.

But within a few days, the position began to change.

“Don’t make a tragedy out of this”

On October 10, Leonid Kuchma uttered a phrase that remains one of the most famous parts of this story a quarter of a century later.

“Don’t make a tragedy out of this.”

Kuchma was reflecting on a possible military error and said that disasters of even greater scale had occurred in the world.

But for the families of the 78 deceased, and especially for Israel, where they were waiting for the return of their citizens’ bodies at that moment, these words sounded extremely painful.

NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency in such a story, it is important not to remove inconvenient facts just because today they are used by Russian media. Kuchma’s phrase was there. The initial denials were also there.

But the chronology does not end there.

On October 13, the Minister of Defense apologized

Three days after Kuchma’s words, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk publicly acknowledged the involvement of the Ukrainian military in the disaster.

“We know we are involved in this disaster.”

He offered deep apologies to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased.

On October 24, Kuchma acknowledged the aircraft’s hit and apologized to Israel

On October 24, 2001, Leonid Kuchma spoke on Ukrainian television.

He acknowledged that the passenger plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile, accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk, ordered a review of the exercise procedures, and limited missile firings.

The main point for the current discussion: Kuchma officially apologized to Russia and Israel, as well as to the families of the deceased.

This was recorded by international and Russian media directly on October 24–25, 2001. Therefore, the claim that Ukraine “never apologized” does not correspond to the chronology of events.

One can discuss the initial denial, Kuchma’s words on October 10, and how late the acknowledgment was. But official apologies did indeed follow.

Israel was paid $7.59 million

The next important stage came two years later.

On November 20, 2003, the governments of Ukraine and Israel signed a special agreement to settle claims related to the disaster.

Under it, Ukraine committed to transferring $7,590,933.34 to the Israeli side for the heirs, successors, and dependents of the deceased included in the agreement.

The document was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada. Its text and information about the ratification are available in the official database of Ukrainian legislation.

A separate agreement was concluded with Russia for $7,809,066.66.

Together, these two amounts total $15.4 million.

So to the question of whether Ukraine paid compensation to the families of the deceased, the answer is unequivocal: yes, it did.

At the same time, it was specifically about payments to relatives. The airline did not receive this money for the destroyed aircraft.

Why the payment did not mean legal recognition of responsibility

At first glance, there seems to be a contradiction: the Ukrainian leadership acknowledged the aircraft was hit by a Ukrainian missile, apologized, then the state paid millions of dollars — but simultaneously stated that it did not recognize legal responsibility.

The explanation lies in the ex gratia formulation.

For the Israeli reader: this is a legal term denoting a voluntary payment that does not in itself imply recognition of a legal obligation or responsibility.

This is how the agreements with Israel and Russia were structured.

Politically, the Ukrainian leadership acknowledged the aircraft was hit by its missile and apologized.

Financially, Ukraine paid compensation to the families.

But legally, the documents were drafted so that the fact of payment did not constitute recognition of Ukraine’s international legal responsibility.

These are different levels, and mixing them into formulas like “Ukraine acknowledged everything” or “Ukraine acknowledged nothing” is incorrect.

Why the airline S7 did not receive compensation

After settling the families’ claims, Sibir Airlines, later becoming S7, separately demanded that Ukraine compensate for the cost of the destroyed Tu-154 and related losses — more than $15.3 million.

It was in this legal process that a new line emerged.

The Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Examinations in 2008–2010 prepared a conclusion questioning the possibility of the Tu-154 being hit by a Ukrainian S-200 missile under the described circumstances.

The defendants’ side referred to this expertise.

Ukrainian commercial courts denied the airline compensation, and in December 2012, the High Commercial Court of Ukraine upheld the previous decisions.

Representatives of the airline disputed the experts’ conclusions. They tried to involve IAC specialists and obtain additional materials, but the corresponding motions were not granted.

But here it is important not to make the opposite mistake.

The phrase “the Ukrainian court proved there was no missile” would be too strong a conclusion.

The courts considered a specific property claim by the airline and the question of whether there were sufficient grounds for recovering money.

At the same time, the final technical report of the IAC continues to contain a different conclusion: the Tu-154 was hit by the warhead of a Ukrainian S-200 missile.

Memory of flight 1812 in Israel

For Russian media, the natural point of this story remains Novosibirsk. For Israel — Ben Gurion and the families, most of whom could not even bury their loved ones.

Twenty years later, the Israeli National Film Fund supported a documentary “Flight 1812: In Search of Mom”.

Its protagonist, Ilya Zeltser, lost his mother Oksana on this flight. He was 13 years old at the time. The film essentially poses a question to Israeli society: why has a tragedy with so many of the country’s citizens gradually almost disappeared from public memory.

A memorial place for the victims of flight 1812 has been created in the Ben Shemen Forest.

That is why the term ‘Novosibirsk tragedy’ is too narrow. Novosibirsk was the final destination of the route. But the plane took off from Israel, and for dozens of families, this story began right here.

Today NAnews has to report on a completely different tragic connection between Israel and Ukraine. On September 25, 2026, in Kyiv, a Russian drone killed 14-year-old Israeli Daniel Umansky. We have thoroughly reconstructed the story of his family and the circumstances of his death, and separately compiled how Israel has reacted to Russian strikes on Ukraine since 2022.

This does not mean that the events of 2001 and 2026 can be equated. The reasons, circumstances, and responsibilities are completely different. What remains common is this: for thousands of families, the boundary between ‘Israeli’ and ‘Ukrainian’ history is much less noticeable than on the political map.

What remains after 25 years

The story of flight 1812 is difficult to honestly fit into a single political slogan.

The main technical investigation concluded that the passenger Tu-154 was accidentally hit by a Ukrainian S-200 missile during exercises. The Ukrainian leadership initially denied such a possibility. Leonid Kuchma indeed said: ‘There is no need to make a tragedy out of this.’

But then came the admission of involvement by the Ukrainian military, official apologies to Israel and Russia, and compensation to the families of the victims.

The legal framework was different: interstate agreements specifically did not recognize Ukraine’s legal responsibility. Later, in a dispute with the airline, Ukrainian forensic experts challenged the missile version, and S7 was unable to recover the cost of the aircraft.

In this dispute over wording, it is easy to lose sight of the main point.

78 people took off from Ben Gurion and did not return. Of the 51 Israeli citizens who died, only the remains of seven were brought home. Most of the victims, along with the wreckage of the plane, remained at the bottom of the Black Sea.

The phone connected to Wi-Fi at the airport. On the website, a banner covers half the screen, followed by a “allow notifications” window, and in the evening, an SMS supposedly from a delivery service arrives with a link to pay a few shekels. On another day, a familiar foreign service suddenly decides that logging in from Israel is suspicious. All this is often lumped together under the term “internet security” and one piece of advice is given: install a VPN.

The advice is too simple. VPN, ad blocker, and DNS filtering work with different parts of the internet connection. Sometimes a person needs one of these tools, sometimes two, sometimes none. And certainly neither VPN nor ad blocker negates the need to check where exactly the link from the SMS leads.

Therefore, it’s better to understand not which program promises “complete protection,” but what specific problem needs to be solved. For an Israeli user, this is especially a practical question: the same phone can work at home, in the office, in a cafe, at the airport, and already in another country within a week.

This material contains AdGuard affiliate links. If a reader purchases a product after clicking such a link, NAnovosti may receive a commission. This does not increase the price for the buyer and does not affect the editorial assessment of the product.

VPN: not “protection from everything,” but a specific tool

VPN creates a connection between the user’s device and the VPN server. The internet resource then sees the server’s IP through which the connection is made, not the user’s regular external IP.

In practice, this can be useful without any spy stories. A person works through hotel Wi-Fi, sits with a laptop at the airport, is outside Israel, or wants to use another internet exit point. VPN here performs a clear job — changes the connection route and adds an encrypted section between the device and the VPN server.

One option for such a task is AdGuard VPN. But buying it just because the word VPN is everywhere now makes no sense. First, you need to understand if this function is needed.

VPN will not fix the mistake of a person who opened a phishing site and entered a password there. It will not remove already installed malicious applications. It will not turn a dubious online store into a real one and will not check the phone number from which they call you.

These are different levels of problems.

Why ads didn’t disappear after turning on VPN

Here begins another confusion. A person buys a VPN, opens a site — and the banners are still there. It seems that the service “doesn’t work well.”

In fact, it is not obliged to solve this task at all.

For ads, pop-ups, and some tracking elements, blockers are used. In the case of AdGuard, this is a separate product — AdGuard Ad Blocker.

AdGuard uses filters — sets of rules that determine advertising, tracking, and other elements. The official documentation separately describes basic, mobile, regional filters, tracking protection, removal of tracking parameters from URLs, and other mechanisms.

So the situation “I want to change IP” and the situation “I want to remove banners” are two different tasks.

If the main complaint about the internet is that pages are filled with ads, VPN may not be the tool to start with at all.

And vice versa: an ad blocker does not become a VPN just because it also relates to privacy. It is not intended to give the user another external IP.

As in other practical materials NAnovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, it is more useful here not to put all the words about security in one box. Otherwise, a person first buys a product, and the next day finds out that they expected a completely different function from it.

DNS: the third layer that the average user almost doesn’t think about

There is also DNS. It sounds technical, although we use it constantly.

When a person enters a website name, the device needs to determine which network address to contact. To simplify, DNS works like one of the internet’s address services.

And filtering can already be done at this level.

AdGuard DNS allows using blocklists for advertising and tracking domains, as well as lists designed to protect against phishing and fraudulent resources.

This approach has its application. Especially at home, where more than one computer has long been connected to the internet: phones, tablets, TVs, consoles, sometimes even equipment where a regular browser extension cannot be installed.

But again, DNS filtering should not be turned into a magic net that catches all the bad. It works with domains and rules. A new fraudulent resource may not yet be in the used lists, and a legitimate site may behave in such a way that too aggressive filtering breaks part of its functions.

Task map: what to use in which situation

Imagine a person who often flies from Israel, works with a laptop on the road, and connects to networks they do not manage themselves. Their first task is connection, traffic route, external IP. Here it makes sense to look at VPN.

Another person has no problems with IP. They are simply tired of banners, pop-ups, ad inserts, and some trackers. For them, it makes more sense to first deal with an ad blocker.

The third wants to set up filtering immediately for the home network and several devices. Here DNS already appears.

And there is a fourth case: a person does not need any new paid service at all. They sit at home, do not change the connection country, are not particularly bothered by ads, do not want to set up DNS. Buying three subscriptions “just in case” is unnecessary here.

Such an answer is also normal.

Israel: where VPN sometimes helps, and where it creates an extra problem

In Israel, there is its own everyday specificity. Many people have accounts and services distributed across several countries. An Israeli bank and kupat holim are next to a Ukrainian service, an old account from another country, a foreign subscription, and applications that a person uses during trips.

VPN in such a construction sometimes solves the problem with the connection location, and sometimes becomes the reason for additional verification.

If after turning on the VPN, the banking application or sensitive service starts behaving strangely, you should not immediately reinstall the phone. First, check through which country the connection is currently going. Sometimes the service simply does not like that five minutes ago the user was in Israel, and now their IP suddenly ended up in another state.

On a trip, the situation is the opposite. A public network in a hotel or airport is just the scenario where VPN has a clear practical purpose.

For a NAnovosti reader who lives in Israel but continues to use Ukrainian services or regularly travels between countries, this is not exotic. There is no one constant mode of “VPN always on” or “VPN never needed.” The network and task change — so does the setup.

NAnovosti has already analyzed the situation when users from Israel faced access problems to Russian resources and certificates. There, VPN could help with one part of the problem, but did not fix everything automatically. More details — in the material about the Russian “Cheburnet” and access problems.

We also have another material on how such restrictions are felt outside Russia: Russian “Cheburnet” continues to affect users abroad.

But with SMS from the “bank,” VPN almost doesn’t help

A separate story is phishing.

A message arrives: the package is delayed, the card is blocked, you need to urgently pay 6.90 ₪, confirm Bit, update banking details. A person opens the page, it looks like the real one, enters the card number and code.

At this moment, you can use the most expensive VPN on the market. If the fake resource was not stopped by other mechanisms and the user themselves provided the data, VPN does not solve the main problem here.

DNS filtering or protective lists can filter out some already known phishing domains. But even this mechanism is built on rules and known addresses, not on the ability to read the user’s mind.

Therefore, digital security still remains a combination: system updates, two-factor authentication, checking the site address, caution with messages, and only then additional tools.

NAnovosti also talked about schemes where Israeli residents were processed through specially organized call centers. There the problem was not at all in the absence of VPN. More details — in our material about the operation of the Ukrainian and Israeli police.

And free options?

A free VPN is not necessarily bad, a paid one does not automatically become good either. The same story with blockers.

You need to look at real limitations: is there a traffic limit, which servers are available, what happens with speed, how the service is funded, what data is collected, how many devices can be connected, and what functions are actually included in the free option.

If VPN is needed a couple of times a year, a person may well be satisfied with a free solution. If work traffic goes through it daily from several devices — the requirements are already different.

And with DNS, a similar picture. Simple DNS filtering and full device management, statistics, and custom rules are not the same.

Explanation for Israeli readers

VPN — Virtual Private Network. A secure connection is created between the device and the VPN server, and the visited sites see the VPN server’s IP.

IP address — network connection address. Among other things, an internet service can approximately determine the user’s country by it.

DNS — a system that helps the device determine the network address of a site by its name. DNS filtering allows blocking requests to certain domains.

Tracker — a site or application element used to collect information about user behavior. This can include visited pages, clicks, device parameters, and other data.

Phishing — an attempt to trick a person into voluntarily disclosing a password, banking details, confirmation code, or other information. A fake page is often specifically made to look like a familiar service’s site.

And one more detail for multilingual Israel: filtering systems have regional rules for different language segments of the internet. Therefore, working with Russian-, Ukrainian-, English-, and Hebrew-language sites may differ.

What to choose in the end

If the problem is primarily with ads, pop-ups, and tracking elements, the first candidate will be AdGuard Ad Blocker. It works specifically with filtering ads and other unwanted content; VPN is not necessary to buy for this task alone.

If the task is connecting through public networks, working on trips, changing external IP, and additional connection privacy, then it makes sense to look at AdGuard VPN. But it does not replace an ad blocker, antivirus, and the habit of checking suspicious links.

If you need to manage filtering at the DNS level and for multiple devices or a home network, a separate option is AdGuard DNS. Here the focus is not on changing IP, but on which domain requests are allowed or blocked.

You can use one product or several — depending on the task. Buying everything as a package just because the names are next to each other is not necessary.

AdGuard: all three options in one place

For those who have reached the end and want not to read about terminology, but to choose a specific tool, let’s repeat without technical fog.

AdGuard VPN — open the service should be considered by those who need a different external IP, VPN for trips, public networks, and additional connection privacy. This option is specifically about VPN, not about universal “internet protection.”

AdGuard Ad Blocker — view versions for devices is intended primarily for blocking ads, banners, pop-up elements, and some tracking mechanisms.

AdGuard DNS — open settings and rates is needed for another level: DNS filtering, blocklists, and managing requests from connected devices. This can be more convenient where a single browser extension installation does not solve the task.

NAnovosti has also requested a separate promo code from AdGuard for readers. After its approval, we will update this material and add the code along with the current discount conditions.

Links to AdGuard products in this material are affiliate links. If a reader makes a purchase after clicking one of them, NAnovosti may receive a commission. For the reader, the affiliate link does not increase the product price.

Three years after October 7, 2023, can be summed up in a few large numbers. 1,029 civilians killed. 1,318 military personnel and security forces killed. More than 87,000 civilians recognized as victims of hostile actions. More than 40,000 have already received a state-established degree of disability.

Author: Alexander Khmelnitsky

And then the billions begin: more than 58 billion shekels in payments to reservists, over 9 billion to victims, families of the deceased, and hostages, billions to evacuees and those who lost their jobs. The Bank of Israel separately estimates the budgetary cost of the war in the hundreds of billions of shekels.

But if you simply add all this up into a long column of numbers, you get statistics and people almost disappear. Therefore, I tried to understand what exactly the state counts in these reports, whom different departments account for separately, and what today’s data actually say about Israel three years after the morning of October 7, 2023.

1,029 civilians killed — and here it’s important to understand who is counted

Bituach Leumi — the Israeli National Insurance Institute, which is responsible, among other things, for payments to civilian victims of terrorism and war — reports 1,029 civilians killed since the start of the war. This category includes foreign citizens but does not include military personnel, police officers, and other security forces: they are handled by another state system.

In the attack on October 7 itself, 778 civilians were killed, including 70 foreigners. Of the total number of those killed since the start of the war, 668 were men and 361 were women, 88 people were foreign citizens.

The age breakdown looks particularly grim: 63 of the deceased were children and teenagers under 18. Six were no older than three years, five were between four and six, six were between seven and ten, 19 were between 11 and 14 years old, and another 27 were between 15 and 18.

Here, by the way, there is a small but fundamental problem in the published statistics. With a total of 1,029 and 778 killed directly on October 7, arithmetically after October 7, 251 people remain. This exact number of 251 is cited by Ynet. In another current retelling of Bituach Leumi data, 252 is indicated, which would already give 1,030. Therefore, until a corrected primary table appears, it is more accurate to use the combination 778 + 251 = 1,029, rather than mechanically transferring contradictory numbers.

This is a trifle only at first glance. When it comes to the deceased, arithmetic should not become approximate.

87,286 affected — but the most severe number here is different

Since the start of the war, Bituach Leumi has been dealing with 87,286 new civilian נפגעי פעולות איבה — “nifgaei peulot eiva”, that is, people officially recognized as victims of terrorist, rocket, and other hostile actions.

This is a legal status, not just a household definition of ‘victim’. It opens access to treatment, compensation, rehabilitation, and, if there are long-term consequences, to the procedure for establishing disability. Military personnel injured during service go through the rehabilitation system of the Ministry of Defense.

Of these 87,286 people, 43,004 have applied for the establishment of a degree of disability. Decisions have already been made on 40,407 applications, the rest are under consideration by medical commissions.

And here appears a number that, in my opinion, much better describes the consequences of this war than another billion in budget expenditures.

34,878 people received disability based on psychological trauma.

Another 3,171 people were recognized as disabled due to physical injuries, and 2,355 due to a combination of physical and psychological consequences.

That is, the overwhelming part of already recognized disability among civilian victims is associated not with amputations, burns, or shrapnel wounds, but with what is often impossible to see externally.

For Israel, this means that the consequences of October 7 cannot be measured only by cemeteries, destroyed houses, or the number of people who ended up in hospitals in the first days. The state system continues to record trauma months and years later.

A year ago, on the second anniversary of the war, Bituach Leumi reported 36,315 disability applications and 33,983 already established cases. Psychological trauma was then the basis for recognizing disability in 30,462 people. Now there are already 43,000 applications, and almost 35,000 psychological cases.

In other words, the war did not end for a person the moment the siren ended.

Behind one deceased person, there are often several broken biographies

Since the start of the war, the circle of civilian mourning has been joined by 1,216 orphans. Of these, 345 were minors at the time of losing a parent.

300 people were widowed — 231 women and 69 men. 1,204 parents lost a child, and 156 of them had no other children after the death of a son or daughter. 2,281 people lost a brother or sister.

These data are important because the Israeli state counts not only the deceased. For Bituach Leumi, an entire family appears that may need benefits, psychological help, rehabilitation, and support for many years.

NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency has already written about why, a thousand days after the attack, the issue of October 7 in Israel remains not only a matter of memory but also a matter of state responsibility and investigation of what happened. A thousand days after October 7 — Israel demands memory, answers, and a state commission

Now the statistics show another side of this process: the state has to not just remember the catastrophe. It has to live with its social consequences for decades.

216 civilian hostages returned — alive or for burial

A separate system of payments and support had to be practically built for hostages and their families.

According to current Bituach Leumi data, 216 civilian hostages were returned from Gaza. 154 returned alive, including 29 foreign citizens. The bodies of another 62 civilian hostages were returned to Israel for burial; six of them were foreigners.

Here, too, an explanation is necessary: this is specifically the civilian category of Bituach Leumi. It should not automatically be perceived as a universal account of all the people captured on October 7, because military personnel and some security forces are accounted for under different departmental rules.

This is why the numbers from different Israeli institutions sometimes seem contradictory, although in reality, they simply count different categories.

Another 1,318 killed — already in the Ministry of Defense system

Separately from civilians, the Ministry of Defense reports 1,318 fallen, included in the category חללי מערכות ישראל — “halalei maarachot Yisrael”, that is, those killed in wars and while performing security system tasks.

Of these, 1,153 are IDF soldiers. This figure includes 43 members of local kitot konenut — armed rapid response teams at settlements, who on the morning of October 7 were the first to engage terrorists in many kibbutzim and moshavim.

In addition, the state statistics include 116 deceased police officers, nine employees of the Shin Bet — Israel’s General Security Service, five employees of the fire and rescue service, 11 employees of the Prison Service, and 24 people with military disabilities who later died from their injuries.

Since the start of the war, more than 7,150 relatives have been added to the official circle of families of the deceased in this system: 2,143 parents, 355 widows, 880 children, and 3,772 brothers and sisters.

There are two huge parallel systems — civilian through Bituach Leumi and military through the Ministry of Defense. Simply adding 1,029 and 1,318 and calling the resulting number ‘the number of war dead’ is tempting, but methodologically not quite accurate: the categories are formed by different departments and according to different legal rules.

58 billion shekels — just for reservists

Another cost of the war usually remains outside the photos from the front.

Over three years, Bituach Leumi paid more than 58 billion shekels in compensation for service in the miluim — the Israeli army reserve. Due to prolonged mobilizations, the state had to switch to paying reservists monthly, rather than waiting for the end of the entire service period.

To understand the scale: in 2024 alone, payments to reservists amounted to about 26 billion shekels, in 2025 — about 21 billion. The Bank of Israel directly links the mass mobilization of reservists not only to budget expenditures but also to limiting the supply of labor in the economy. בנק ישראל

Miluim is not an army that exists separately from the civilian economy. It is a small business owner, an engineer, a doctor, a high-tech employee, a builder, a father or mother of a family, who are taken from ordinary life for weeks and months.

Therefore, the state simultaneously pays a person for service and loses part of their civilian productivity.

Another 9 billion — to victims, families, and hostages

According to the current estimate of Bituach Leumi, over three years more than 9 billion shekels were directed to victims of hostile actions, families of the deceased, hostages, and their relatives.

The distribution shows how this account grew: more than 800 million shekels in the last months of 2023, about 2 billion in 2024, 3.5 billion in 2025, and at least 3 billion in 2026.

Separately, more than 750 million shekels have already been directed to rehabilitation: professional and higher education, payments during training, transportation, housing rent, auxiliary services, and ensuring accessibility.

Special assistance grants to victims of October 7 amounted to about 662 million shekels for 83,563 people. More than 526 million were received by 74,802 people who lived or were in settlements near the Gaza Strip.

This is no longer the emergency aid of the first weeks. Over three years, a huge permanent system of expenses has formed.

Evacuees, those who lost their jobs, and a few more billion

After October 7, the state evacuated entire settlements in the south, and then in the north of Israel.

More than 5 billion shekels were paid to approximately 190,000 residents who evacuated and organized housing themselves instead of being placed by the state in hotels. Another about 1.4 billion went to approximately 110,000 people in the form of grants for returning home. Almost 74,000 workers received about 1.2 billion shekels in incentive payments for returning to their previous jobs.

There is also the Israeli concept of חל״ת — HALAT, unpaid leave. The employer temporarily stops paying wages, but employment relations are not necessarily formally severed, and under special military schemes, a person can receive an allowance from the state.

The cost of such programs in three major military periods reached approximately 4.2 billion shekels: about 2.5 billion after the start of the war on October 7, about half a billion during Operation ‘Am ke-Lavi’ — the war with Iran in June 2025 — and about 1.7 billion during Operation ‘Shaagat ha-Ari’ in 2026.

That is, the war is paid for not only by the Ministry of Defense. It appears in the social security budget, unemployment benefits, housing, psychiatric care, rehabilitation, business compensation, and interest on the national debt.

352 billion — but this is not ‘the bill Israel has already paid’

This is where the confusion with the loudest number begins.

The Bank of Israel estimated additional government expenses caused by the war for 2023–2026 at 352 billion shekels. This is an estimate of the budgetary impact of the war, not a bag of money already entirely taken out of the state treasury by this morning.

In the annual report of the Bank of Israel, it is stated: 249 billion in additional defense expenses, 33 billion in compensation for direct and indirect damage through the property tax fund, 57 billion in other civilian expenses, and 13 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt. בנק ישראל

But in the March presentation by the head of the Bank of Israel, Amir Yaron, the same total of 352 billion is broken down differently: 243 billion in defense expenses and 19 billion in interest, with unchanged 33 and 57 billion for the other two items.

And this is precisely an official document of the Bank of Israel, not a journalistic error.

Therefore, I would not try to portray one of these breakdowns as the only existing one. It is more correct to say: The Bank of Israel gives a total of 352 billion shekels, but in two official materials, the internal classification of 6 billion shekels between defense and interest expenses differs.

The main clarification is written by the Bank of Israel itself: the calculation was made at the end of 2025 and did not include subsequent decisions made after the start of Operation ‘Shaagat ha-Ari’ in 2026.

In March, the government decided to increase the defense budget by another 32 billion shekels and create a reserve of about 13 billion for additional military and civilian needs in case of continued hostilities.

Mechanically adding 32 and 13 to 352 and declaring that ‘the war has already cost 397 billion’ would be incorrect. Part of the amount is a budget reserve, not already incurred expenses; moreover, subsequent forecasts of the Bank of Israel changed along with the situation on the fronts. In the July forecast, for example, an increase in the defense budget by 15 billion shekels was assumed, mainly due to the already provided reserve.

Therefore, the formulation ‘the budgetary scale of the war approached 400 billion shekels’ is possible only with these reservations. The formulation ‘Israel has already spent 400 billion’ is not.

And there are 175 billion more that cannot be added to 352 at all

There is another number that is especially easy to misuse.

The Bank of Israel estimated that over nine quarters, the war led to approximately 175 billion shekels of accumulated GDP lag from the pre-war trend. This is equivalent to about 8.5–8.6% of annual GDP.

But this is not additional budgetary expenses.

352 billion — money and obligations of the state budget related to the war.

175 billion — an estimate of how much economic activity Israel missed compared to the trajectory the economy could have followed without the war.

Adding them up and getting ‘527 billion as the cost of the war’ is not allowed. It’s like adding the repair bill of a closed store to the revenue that store didn’t earn during the closure and presenting the result as the same category of expenses.

NANews previously separately compared the economic cost of wars for Israel and Ukraine. The same principle applies there: beautiful sums are easy to put side by side, but without understanding the methodology, the comparison begins to mislead the reader. The cost of war: Israel and Ukraine — why the sums cannot be compared directly

What these numbers mean three years later

If you remove the billion-dollar sums, a rather unpleasant picture remains.

Israel managed to continue the economy’s work, return reservists, restore production, and even demonstrate periods of rapid growth after sharp declines. NANews recently analyzed why huge quarterly GDP recovery figures cannot be read as proof that the war ‘passed for the economy almost for free’. 14.9% GDP growth in Israel: why the huge figure appeared after the military decline

The economy indeed withstood.

But ‘withstood’ and ‘nothing happened’ are completely different statements.

The national debt has grown. Interest expenses have increased. Security expenses have become structurally higher. Tens of thousands of people received official disability status. Thousands of families entered state systems of long-term assistance. Billions continue to go to reservists, evacuees, victims, and those who could not work due to another round of war.

And 34,878 citizens with recognized psychological disabilities mean something else: a significant part of the bill for October 7 will be paid when October 7 itself is long gone from daily headlines.

That is why the third anniversary is no longer just a conversation about how much Israel lost in one terrible day.

It’s a question of what that day continues to cost the country every subsequent year.

Three days ago, it all started with an almost incredible story about the sudden fall of a Flydubai plane, a possible hijacking code, an injured captain, and an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Now the UAE authorities officially speak of an attempted terrorist act. Pavel Shveyko gathered what has become known over these days about the person who was in the co-pilot’s seat — and discovered a question that is becoming almost more important than the attack itself: why was he even allowed back into the cockpit of a passenger plane.

Author: Pavel Shveyko

On September 30, 2026, Flydubai flight FZ1073 departed from Dubai to Tel Aviv as a regular passenger flight. On board were more than 170 passengers and crew members, most of whom were Israelis. Somewhere over Saudi Arabia, the routine flight ended: the plane suddenly went down, communication with the cockpit became problematic, and the situation escalated to a signal of possible unlawful interference.

Initially, the information was contradictory. There were talks of a fight between pilots, a knife, an attempted hijacking, and even a medical incident. On the same day, NANovosti detailed the events of the flight and noted separately: too much was still based on passenger accounts and initial leaks, and there was no official explanation. 174 people over Saudi Arabia: what happened on the Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv

Now this uncertainty has significantly decreased.

The UAE has officially called the incident an attempted terrorist act for the first time.

On October 3, the Attorney General of the United Arab Emirates, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, announced through the state agency WAM that the investigation results indicate an attempted terrorist act on board FZ1073.

According to the investigation, the co-pilot attacked the aircraft commander inside the cockpit with an emergency crash axe, after which he attempted to seize control of the plane. Such an axe is a standard emergency tool in the cockpit and is intended for entirely different situations — for example, for crew actions after an accident or when access to damaged structural elements is needed.

This is an important clarification. Initial reports mostly mentioned a knife, but now the UAE authorities specify the exact weapon used in the attack and directly qualify the episode as terrorist. Reuters emphasizes that the prosecutor general’s statement is the first instance where the Emirati authorities themselves used such terminology.

Meanwhile, the investigation is not complete. The prosecution is studying the circumstances of the attack, the motive, possible connections of the suspect, physical and digital evidence. And this distinction is crucial: the attempted terrorist act is already the official version of the investigation, but who was behind it, whether the attacker acted alone, and what his ultimate plan was, is not yet publicly established.

Hamam Al-Hammami: who was in the co-pilot’s seat

American and Arab media identified the suspect as 29-year-old Omani citizen Hamam Al-Hammami. CNN, citing several sources, reports that he was born in the UAE to an Omani father and a Syrian mother and spent a significant part of his life in the Emirates. His name was also mentioned by Israeli officials and Saudi state media.

He had a completely normal external biography for a professional pilot. According to a LinkedIn profile, which was deleted after the incident and whose authenticity was confirmed by a CNN source, Al-Hammami was associated with Oman Air for about seven years — from February 2018 to February 2025.

He also received education in aviation management. Buckinghamshire New University in the UK confirmed to CNN that a person with that name completed a three-year distance program and received a degree in aviation management in 2023.

On paper, we are not dealing with a random person who ended up in the cockpit. This is a pilot with many years of experience in the aviation industry.

And this is where the most unpleasant part of this story begins.

Oman Air noticed the alarm back in 2024

According to ABC News, citing senior intelligence and law enforcement officials, problems arose during Al-Hammami’s time at Oman Air.

In 2024, he allegedly was found with extremist materials. After this, he was considered a security risk, removed from flights, and transferred to administrative work. That is, the company did not necessarily fire him immediately but did the main thing for aviation safety — removed him from the cockpit.

CNN received very similar information from its sources. One of the channel’s interlocutors reported that Al-Hammami was removed from flight training precisely because of concerns related to his radical views and was transferred to another position at Oman Air.

At this point, the story ceases to be just the story of one person.

Because after some time, he was back at the controls of a passenger Boeing.

Between Oman and Dubai, there was also Morocco

The deleted LinkedIn of Al-Hammami contains another interesting line: after Oman Air, he allegedly moved to Royal Air Maroc and held the position of Senior First Officer from June 2025 to January 2026.

But the Moroccan airline itself describes this period differently.

According to Moroccan Le Desk, Royal Air Maroc confirmed that Al-Hammami was indeed in training with them, but claims that he only completed about three months of theoretical training and did not perform any flights for the airline.

The difference is significant. It’s one thing to work as an experienced co-pilot for eight months, as the resume suggested, and quite another to go through a limited training phase and not be allowed to commercial flights.

After Morocco, Al-Hammami ended up at Flydubai. An Israeli official told CNN that by the time of the attack, he had been working there for about eight months.

It turns out to be a strange sequence: Oman Air removes him from flights amid concerns about extremist views; in Royal Air Maroc, according to the company’s version, he does not reach real flights; then Flydubai allows him to operate aircraft — including on the route to Israel.

NANovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency is now dealing not only with the actions of one pilot. We are facing a possible failure of the international system for exchanging information about risks within civil aviation.

There is still no answer as to whether Flydubai knew about Oman Air’s decision. It is also unknown whether the information about Al-Hammami’s removal was passed on to the UAE authorities, subsequent employers, or international aviation structures.

ABC writes directly that investigators are now trying to understand how a person previously recognized as a potential security risk was able to regain the right to fly and become the first officer on a flight to Israel.

The Israeli route makes the question even sharper

For the Israeli reader, another context is necessary here. Oman, of which Al-Hammami is a citizen, does not have full diplomatic relations with Israel. This in itself does not automatically prohibit an Omani citizen from working on a flight of an Emirati airline, but it makes the question of crew verification especially sensitive.

Flydubai is a UAE airline, and since 2020, there have been diplomatic relations and direct air communication between Israel and the Emirates. The Dubai — Tel Aviv route has become routine and massive for Israelis over these years. Therefore, a passenger boards a plane in Dubai, usually without thinking about which country issued the co-pilot’s passport.

Now security services need to understand whether the existing information about this particular person’s biography should have stopped him much earlier.

NANovosti has already written about why Israel is able to maintain civil air communication even during periods of war and missile threats: such a system relies not only on air defense but also on a huge number of invisible procedures — intelligence information, crew checks, protected routes, and airline interaction with the state. Sky during war: why Israel flies, and Ukraine closed aviation for years

The FZ1073 story shows another side of this system: sometimes the threat may not be what approaches the plane from outside.

What was found in deleted accounts

After Al-Hammami’s identity was established, journalists began to study his digital footprint. And it added new questions to the investigation.

CNN analyzed about three thousand deleted posts on Twitter/X made in 2021–2022. In them, Al-Hammami demonstrated extremely conservative religious views: he wrote, for example, about requiring his future wife to wear a niqab and quit work after marriage, opposed men and women working together.

It is important to separate things. Radically conservative or misogynistic views in themselves are not proof of preparing a terrorist act and do not prove affiliation with a terrorist organization.

But the digital trail does not end there.

About nine hours after the incident, two posts appeared on a LinkedIn profile in Al-Hammami’s name. CNN emphasizes that it is not yet known whether the suspect himself posted them after the attack, whether someone else managed the account, or whether the posts were scheduled in advance.

One of the videos contained footage from the cockpit of a Boeing 737 MAX, images of Israeli planes, including El Al, and ended with photos of former Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi — a suicide bomber who carried out an attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan in 2009.

The second post used an AI-generated image of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, accompanied by text about rejecting humiliation, dignity, and lack of fear of death. Similar posts appeared on Instagram, after which the accounts disappeared.

This is why the UAE prosecutor’s statement about checking digital evidence and possible connections now looks especially important.

However, there is no public evidence that Al-Hammami was a member of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other terrorist organization at this time.

What happened in the cockpit

According to the official UAE version, Al-Hammami struck the captain with an emergency axe and attempted to seize control.

The aircraft commander was Indian pilot Smith Machhar. During the struggle, the plane rapidly lost altitude. According to Flightradar24 data cited by Reuters, FZ1073 descended approximately 16,625 feet — more than five kilometers — in just over 30 seconds.

For a passenger airliner, such dynamics turn what is happening in the cabin from an abstract “emergency situation” into a physically tangible catastrophe that has already begun to unfold.

The crew and people on board managed to stop the attacker. Another circumstance played a special role: other Flydubai pilots were on the flight as passengers for subsequent work. One of the reserve pilots was able to take a seat in the cockpit and help regain control of the plane.

FZ1073 eventually made an emergency landing in Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia. There, Al-Hammami was detained by Saudi authorities, after which he was handed over to the UAE for investigation.

For Israel, at that moment, the situation looked different: it was about a plane heading to Tel Aviv, with signs of a possible hijacking. Israel scrambled fighters and prepared for an emergency scenario even before it became clear that the plane would land in Saudi Arabia. NANovosti collected the first chronology of this reaction on the day of the incident. Israel scrambled fighters due to Flydubai plane with 174 passengers

Did he want to crash the plane over Israel

In the last day, another formulation has appeared: allegedly Al-Hammami has already confessed to the investigation that he intended to crash the plane over Israel.

It looks plausible against the backdrop of everything else — the flight was indeed heading to Tel Aviv, the co-pilot attacked the captain, tried to gain control, and the plane was rapidly descending. Some media also report, citing sources, that the investigation is considering the version of an intentional attempt to destroy the plane.

But at the time of publication, NANovosti did not find confirmation of exactly a confession in the official statement of the UAE prosecutor’s office, Reuters, ABC News, or CNN.

The Emirati prosecutor general reported an attempted terrorist act, an axe attack, and an attempt to seize control. At the same time, he emphasized that the exact motives and possible connections are still being investigated.

Therefore, turning the phrase “he confessed that he wanted to crash the plane over Israel” into an established fact is premature.

There is also a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that, according to Israel’s information, the co-pilot was subjected to radical Islamist indoctrination and appeared to be a person with suicidal intentions. But at that time, Netanyahu himself noted that the final motive had not yet been established; now Israel is involved in checking the suspect’s possible connections. Reuters reports that Israeli investigators are expected to participate in the investigation alongside the Emirati side.

This is an important boundary between what is already known and what is still being clarified.

The main question now is not about the axe

The most obvious part of this story is the attack in the cockpit. Much is already clear there: there was an emergency axe, the captain was injured, there was an attempt to gain control, there was a sharp descent, there was an emergency landing, and the UAE authorities now officially call the incident an attempted terrorist act.

It is much more difficult to explain the preceding two years.

If the information from ABC and CNN is ultimately confirmed, as early as 2024, a professional aviation structure already saw the problem. The person was checked, extremist materials were found, and it was decided that he should not be at the controls of an aircraft.

The system worked in one place.

And then this same person went through another company, came to Flydubai, and was back in the cockpit. And not on a conditional domestic flight, but on a regular route to Tel Aviv — a direction that, for obvious reasons, is politically and terroristically sensitive.

And here the question is no longer just about Hamam Al-Hammami.

Who knew about his past? Who should have known? Did Oman Air pass the information further? What did Flydubai see during the new pilot’s check? What did they not see? And is there even a mechanism that guarantees that a person removed from flights by one airline due to extremist concerns will not end up in the cockpit of another a year later?

There are no answers to these questions yet.

But after the UAE prosecutor general’s statement, the previous version of the “unclear pilot fight” is definitively in the past. An attempted terrorist act occurred on the Dubai — Tel Aviv flight — this is how the state, where Flydubai is based, now officially qualifies the events.

And the coincidence may lie in something else entirely: there were people on the plane who managed to stop the attacker and land the airliner before investigators would have to deal with not just an attempt, but a catastrophe.

The German magazine KATAPULT, known for its visual journalism and social research, published an infographic in issue No. 39 (October–December 2025) that shocked the civilized world.

What KATAPULT Magazine No. 39 Showed

On the map is Ukraine, with the territories occupied by Russia highlighted in red: Crimea, the south of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and most of Donbas.

The caption under the map is short but terrifying: 114,500 square kilometers.

The headline sounds simple, almost mundane — “Wie viel Land Russland in der Ukraine besetzt hat” — “How much land Russia has occupied in Ukraine”.
And below is a question that strikes any normal person:

“Wie viel das in deinem Land wäre?” — “How would this look in your country?”

Below the map of Ukraine, the editorial team placed fifteen mini-maps: Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, USA, Belarus, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Czech Republic, Sweden, and Russia.

On each of them, the same area — 114,500 km² — is shaded in red, so everyone can see: if Russia took as much as in Ukraine, what would disappear on their own map.

This visualization turns dry numbers into a personal feeling — into a real, physical awareness of loss.

Scale: Comparison with Israel

To truly understand the scale, one just needs to look at the numbers.
The area of Israel in “internationally recognized borders” is 20,770 square kilometers.

If you add the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem — territories that Israel considers its own, (but more than 150 countries and the UN do not recognize their annexation, and recognition has been fully or partially expressed only by the USA, several Latin American countries, and some states in Africa and Oceania), — the total area will be about 22,000 square kilometers.

Add the controlled areas in Judea and Samaria — Zone C, about 60% of these lands, — and the area increases to 26,000.
And if you include all of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, it will be about 28,000 square kilometers.

Now the comparison.

The Russian occupation covers 114,500 square kilometers.
This is more than five times the size of all of Israel in “internationally recognized borders”,
and about four times larger than modern Israel along with Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Even if we recall the historical maximum of 1967–1982, when Israel controlled Sinai, the Golan, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, —
the entire territory was about 88,000 square kilometers.

And even then, Israel was smaller than the currently occupied part of Ukraine — by almost thirty thousand square kilometers.

If you transfer a “spot” of 114,500 km² onto the map of the Middle East, it would cover all of Israel, all of Judea and Samaria, Gaza, and Sinai —
and there would still be room for Lebanon + Cyprus, or one and a half Qatar, or an entire Kuwait.

What Exactly KATAPULT Magazine No. 39 Printed

The KATAPULT editorial team did not limit itself to the map of Ukraine.
The issue’s pages feature maps of fifteen countries — from Germany to the USA —
and on each of them, the same red spot of 114,500 km² is marked.

The editorial wrote:

“Diese Karten zeigen, wie groß die von Russland besetzten Gebiete der Ukraine sind – im Vergleich zu anderen Ländern.”
(“These maps show how large the territory occupied by Russia in Ukraine is – compared to other countries.”)

These data show that if such a scale of occupation were transferred to any European country, it would lose a third or half of its territory.
And small states, like Belgium and the Czech Republic, would disappear from the map entirely.

KATAPULT makes the reader literally feel the scale of the catastrophe.
What looks like a red spot on the map is, in reality, cities, schools, streets, and millions of lives.

When a Map Stops Being Just Geography

On behalf of the editorial team of NAnews, we can say only one thing:
this map is not just a piece of journalism, but a visual scream.
In these lands, people are tortured, killed, raped.
Books are burned there, language is erased, children are stolen and prepared to one day take up arms against their country.

Every square kilometer on the KATAPULT map is a home that no longer exists,
and a family that will never return.

The publication of the German magazine is not about numbers, but about the conscience of the world.
About the fact that before our eyes, there is an attempt to rewrite the world,
and that Ukraine, defending itself, defends the very idea that
the borders of nations are not drawn with blood.

Ukraine must regain all its land — all of Donbas and all of Crimea.
Not partially. Not “by agreement”.
Completely. Because a world where territory can be stolen with impunity ceases to be a world.

From the old synagogue and overgrown cemetery to the house already destroyed by war: in Ukraine, the ‘Jewish Heritage’ — a special nomination of Wiki Loves Monuments — has begun. For Israelis, this may be significantly closer than it seems. The huge list includes places associated with cities, towns, and families from which a large part of Israeli society once grew.

Author: R.Verter

On October 1, 2026, the national stage of the international photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments — ‘Вікі любить пам’ятки‘ began in Ukraine. For the ninth consecutive year, a separate nomination ‘Jewish Heritage’ (original Ukrainian – “Єврейська спадщина“) is held within its framework.

The title is a bit misleading. This is not a contest just for beautiful photographs of famous synagogues. And it’s not entirely a story about photography.

The contest list already includes more than 1400 objects of immovable Jewish cultural heritage in Ukraine. More than 800 of them do not have official protection status. That is, the state register of monuments does not yet protect more than half of the places that organizers already consider part of the country’s Jewish heritage. Meanwhile, the list is not yet complete.

These can be functioning synagogues. They can be semi-collapsed buildings where a synagogue was a hundred years ago, and today a warehouse, workshop, or just empty walls. Old Jewish cemeteries, mass graves of Nazi victims, public buildings, houses associated with the life of communities. The special nomination also includes monuments of the Karaites — a small ethnoconfessional community historically living, in particular, in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine.

For Israel, the number 1400 is not even the important part here.

What matters is that behind each such number in the catalog may stand a specific place from where someone’s family once left.

Grandfather’s synagogue may today be an ordinary house

In Israel, Ukrainian origin is usually perceived through big names: Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Dnipro, Kharkiv. But the Jewish map of Ukraine is much denser.

It also consists of Medzhybizh, Sharhorod, Sataniv, Sadgora, Mukachevo, small towns of Volhynia, Podolia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia. From former shtetls — as small towns with significant Jewish populations and established Jewish community life were called in Eastern Europe.

Part of this world disappeared during the Holocaust. Soviet policy finished off something: synagogues were closed and adapted for other functions, cemeteries were destroyed, the memory of specifically Jewish victims dissolved in the impersonal formula of ‘Soviet citizens’.

But the buildings remained.

And sometimes the matzevot remained — Jewish tombstones, usually with inscriptions in Hebrew. In Ukraine, they are still being found literally under roads and near houses today. NAnews recently reported, for example, how a discovered matzevah in Lviv was returned to the territory of the Jewish cemetery, and also about how old Jewish necropolises in Ukraine are turning into a kind of archive of names and families.

Therefore, the contest decided in principle not to limit itself to objects that the state has already managed to assign monument status.

Otherwise, a huge piece of this history will simply fall out.

800 objects exist without state protection

The scale here is perhaps best shown by one figure: out of more than 1400 objects of Jewish and Karaite real estate in the contest list, more than 800 do not have official protection status.

What does this mean practically?

That an old building may be known to a local historian as a former synagogue, appear in historical publications, have photographs and coordinates — but legally not be a monument.

With cemeteries, the situation is even more complicated. Sometimes only individual tombstones, part of a fence, a few dozen matzevot among the grass remain from a necropolis. Sometimes an old cemetery is generally difficult to see for a person who does not know what to look for.

NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency has already reported on the Sataniv Jewish necropolis, where tombstones from the 17th–19th centuries have been preserved, and on an unusual find in Uzhgorod, where researchers restored the names of people buried in the Jewish cemetery during World War I.

In this sense, Wiki Loves Monuments works a little differently than the state register.

First, an object can be seen. Recorded. Linked to coordinates. Described. A photograph placed in an open archive.

And only then argue about statuses.

The war sharply changed the meaning of these photographs

Until 2022, all this could be perceived as quite calm local history work.

Now — no longer.

On the official page of the nomination, among the examples is shown the estate of merchant Abram Tregubov in Mariupol. The photograph is dated March 2021. Next to it is already an explanation: the building was partially destroyed in 2022.

One photograph suddenly became evidence of the state of the building before the war.

Such cases are becoming more frequent.

The United Jewish Community of Ukraine in 2026 compiled a separate chronology of Jewish objects damaged or destroyed after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. It included synagogues, cemeteries, schools, community buildings, social institutions, and memorial places. NAnews detailed this list of damaged and destroyed objects.

That’s why the current contest is no longer just about ‘taking a picture of a beautiful old synagogue’.

Sometimes the camera captures what may not exist in such a form in a few years.

Photographs cannot just be taken now

And here is an important limitation, especially if after reading you want to help.

Due to martial law and security requirements, the contest organizers in 2026 accept ordinary external photographs taken no later than August 31, 2026, inclusive.

That is, going now to a military object, bridge, strategic infrastructure, or specifically searching for an angle of an old building for the contest is definitely not required — and in most cases, a fresh outdoor shot will still not be accepted.

Exceptions are provided for photographs of interiors of Jewish heritage objects, as well as shots taken in temporarily occupied territories: a different regime applies to them.

Works can be uploaded from October 1 to October 31, 2026.

Moreover, the photograph does not have to be taken specifically for the contest. It can be an old shot from a trip several years ago.

And here a separate door opens for Israelis.

Perhaps the needed photograph is already with you

Many families in Israel have archives of trips to Ukraine.

Someone went to the grave of a great-grandfather. Someone photographed the synagogue of their parents’ hometown. Someone was in Uman, Medzhybizh, Berdychiv, Chernivtsi, Mukachevo, or a small village whose name is known only within the family.

Such a photograph may be more useful than a new professional shoot.

Especially if the object is poorly documented.

In 2026, the organizers specifically changed the rules for determining the most active participants: additional weight was given to monuments that are not yet represented in Wikimedia Commons — the open media repository of Wikipedia projects — objects whose photographs have not been updated for a long time, interiors, and monuments from regions, a significant part of which is occupied by Russian troops.

The logic is clear: the thousandth shot of one famous building is less useful than the first normal photograph of a forgotten Jewish cemetery.

If the object is not on the list at all — they ask to report it

The list of 1400 objects is not closed.

The organizers explicitly write: it is ‘far from complete’ and will be supplemented even during the contest.

If a known object of Jewish immovable heritage is not in the database, information can be sent to the organizing committee at wlm@wikimedia.org.ua.

The settlement, coordinates, and, if available, additional information or publications confirming the history of the place are needed.

This is perhaps one of the most interesting moments of the entire project.

Because a person in Haifa, Ashdod, or Be’er Sheva sometimes knows more about an old synagogue in a Ukrainian town than the modern residents of the street on which it stands.

Family memory is also a source. Of course, it still needs to be verified with documents. But it is often with it that the search begins.

What happened last year

The scale of the special nomination is already quite serious.

In the 2025 contest, 55 authors submitted almost 900 photographs of 148 Jewish heritage objects. After preliminary selection, the jury received 851 works, 130 made it to the second round. In the final, 19 winning photographs were determined, and one more work received an honorable mention.

The objects were located in Kyiv, Crimea, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, and Chernivtsi regions.

The categories themselves explain a lot: cemeteries, places of mass shootings and burials, synagogues, other buildings, and Karaite kenesas.

The jury included a representative from Israel — Amir E. Aharoni, listed by the organizers as Israel/USA. Together with him, the works were evaluated by Jewish heritage researchers Marla Raucher Osborn and Jay Osborn from Rohatyn Jewish Heritage and American Wikipedian Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight.

In 2026, the jury of the special nomination is to determine the authors of the three best photographs, and the most active participants will be separately noted.

Ukraine has already collected 450 thousand photographs of monuments

The Ukrainian part of Wiki Loves Monuments has been held since 2012, and the current contest is the fifteenth.

During this time, participants from Ukraine have uploaded more than 450 thousand photographs of monuments — by this indicator, the country ranks first in the world. The contest lists have turned into an open database containing more than 115 thousand objects of cultural heritage in Ukraine.

The international Wiki Loves Monuments appeared in the Netherlands in 2010. Over 17 years, the project has collected more than 3.6 million photographs of monuments from different countries. The ten best Ukrainian shots of the current general contest will then go to the international stage.

The special nomination ‘Jewish Heritage’ in Ukraine is supported by Ukrainian Jewish Encounter — ‘Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter’. This is an international initiative created in 2008 that works with researchers, community leaders, and cultural projects to study Ukrainian-Jewish history and dialogue between the two societies. Among the participants in its projects are representatives of Ukraine, Israel, and the diaspora.

From Babi Yar to an unknown cemetery near a small village

An Israeli can easily understand Babi Yar.

This is one of the central places of Holocaust memory on the territory of the former USSR. NAnews recently detailed the first unofficial memory rallies in Babi Yar in 1966, when the Soviet authorities perceived independent Jewish and Ukrainian memory almost as a political challenge.

On September 29, 2026, a ceremony was held in Jerusalem, at Yad Vashem, to mark the 85th anniversary of the mass killings in Babi Yar. There they also spoke about Ukrainians — Righteous Among the Nations, who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation. NAnews wrote about this ceremony separately.

But the problem is that the history of Ukrainian Jews does not fit into one Babi Yar.

There are thousands of places without world-famous names.

An empty plot behind the village.

A half-ruined wall.

A few matzevot in the bushes.

A house with large windows bricked up, about which the old people still remember: ‘Jews used to pray there’.

It is such places that disappear the quietest.

Sometimes to preserve means at least to manage to record

Of course, a photograph will not replace restoration.

A Wikipedia entry will not create a fence around a cemetery, will not repair the roof of an old synagogue, and will not provide legal protection for the object.

But there is a stage even earlier.

First, you need to know that this place even exists.

Know the coordinates. See the condition. Find an old photograph. Connect the building with the name of a vanished community. Read the inscription on the matzevah. Save the image so that it does not remain only in the family phone.

And then one photograph can suddenly become a historical document.

Like the 2021 photograph of Abram Tregubov’s house in Mariupol.

When it was taken — it was just a photograph of an old building.

After 2022 — already evidence of what it was like before the destruction.

That is why the current contest concerns Israel much more directly than it seems from the name. A huge part of Ukrainian Jewish heritage is simultaneously the family history of today’s Israelis.

Perhaps somewhere among these 1400 points is the place of your family.

And perhaps it is not yet on the list at all.

Page – https://uk.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2810696

You can participate in the special nomination and check the list of objects. Photographs are accepted until October 31, 2026. Information about unknown Jewish heritage objects to the organizers can be sent to wlm@wikimedia.org.ua.

From November 11 to 21, 2026, the 13th International Photography Festival PHOTO IS:RAEL will take place in Tel Aviv. Its program includes a separate exhibition of Ukrainian photographers currently living in Israel; among them are people who left Ukraine after the start of the full-scale Russian war. Israeli Friends of Ukraine is already covering the main expenses, but an additional 10,000 shekels are needed to implement the project.

Author: Pavel Shveiko

“Help Ukraine be heard on the international stage in Israel” — with this wording, Israeli Friends of Ukraine started fundraising for the Ukrainian exhibition at the International Photography Festival PHOTO IS:RAEL. According to the project organizers, for the first time, a group of Ukrainian photographers currently living in Israel has been invited. Some participants arrived here after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

The exhibition is expected to run all festival days — from November 11 to 21, 2026. The organizers of the Ukrainian project hope that during this time, the photographs will be seen by about 50,000 people: the Israeli public, foreign guests, representatives of cultural, public, and diplomatic organizations. PHOTO IS:RAEL does not promise a specific 50,000 visitors but speaks of “tens of thousands” annually, so the first figure should be seen as an estimate by Israeli Friends of Ukraine.

This project has another feature. Ukrainian works will not be part of a specialized diaspora event, where mainly people already interested in Ukraine would come, but in the general program of a major Israeli festival. For NAnovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, this is where the main plot lies: the Ukrainian theme reaches an audience that might not have planned to specifically look for an exhibition about Ukraine.

PHOTO IS:RAEL 2026: 50 exhibitions and more than 200 photographers

The 13th International Photography Festival PHOTO IS:RAEL will be held this year at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque complex, HaArba’a St, 5. PHOTO IS:RAEL announces about 50 open exhibitions and works by more than 200 photographers from Israel and other countries. In addition to exhibitions, there will be films, tours, meetings with authors, and family events. The festival space itself is open for free; only some special events and tours are separately charged.

On November 11, the opening day, the festival will operate from 20:00 to 22:00. From Sunday to Thursday, the hours are 10:00–22:00, on Friday — 10:00–16:00, on Saturday — again until 22:00. It can be reached, among other ways, via the Carlebach red line light rail station; the Tel Aviv HaShalom railway station is also relatively nearby. For the Israeli reader, this is a useful detail: it is essentially in the center of Tel Aviv, not a closed exhibition venue on the periphery.

The theme of the current festival is Citizens / אזרחים / “Citizens”. PHOTO IS:RAEL interprets it more broadly than the formal entry in the teudat-zehut: who gets the opportunity to be noticed, whose voice is present in society, and how much a person can participate in shaping the common reality. Therefore, the Ukrainian exhibition fits the theme quite naturally — the authors, some of whom have changed their country of residence due to the war, talk about their own experiences already within Israeli society.

From HaTachana to the Cinematheque: how the festival appeared

The history of PHOTO IS:RAEL began long before the current Ukrainian initiative. The first International Photography Festival was held back in 2009 at the HaTachana complex in Tel Aviv under the theme Point of View. The creation of the first festival is associated with photographers Eyal Landesman and Eldad Rafaeli; Rafaeli then was responsible for its artistic direction for several years. The current organization PHOTO IS:RAEL has existed since 2012 as חברה לתועלת הציבור, or חל״צ for short — an Israeli public benefit company operating without the aim of distributing profits.

The official retrospective shows how the venues and themes have changed. In 2010, the “Short Exposure” project took place in the Tel Aviv port, in 2012, the “Sustainability” festival was hosted in the Jaffa port, in 2014, “Photographic Memory” was held at the Carmel Winery in Rishon LeZion. Then there were “Safe Space” in Jaffa in 2016, “Identity” in Midtown in 2017, “Relations” in 2018, “Fantasy” in Azrieli Sarona in 2019, and “Transformation” at Kikar HaMedina in 2020.

In 2021, the festival had the theme “Meeting Point”, in 2022 — “Action”. The edition initially planned for November 2023 was postponed to March–April 2024 due to circumstances and took place without a general theme. In 2025, the 12th festival was called Voices — “Voices”, with Svetlana Reingold as the chief curator. Now the next step is Citizens. In this sequence, it is quite clear where the institution itself has been moving in recent years: photography here is increasingly used not only as an artistic object but also as a way to talk about community, identity, and the possibility of being heard.

Currently, Eyal Landesman is listed as the co-founder and director of PHOTO IS:RAEL, Zion Bahlul heads the board of directors, Svetlana Reingold works as the chief curator. Co-founder Yitzhak Goren is on the board of directors; Itai Bar-Yosef is responsible for development and partnerships, Netta Graf for social programs. Thus, the festival is backed by a permanent organization with year-round activities, not a temporary team assembled for a single November project.

PHOTO IS:RAEL calls itself an independent structure and writes that it does not receive permanent support from government or public bodies. However, in the open state register, there is, for example, a separate agreement of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the organization for 13,000 ₪ in 2018, related to the international component of the Identity festival. This is not the same as permanent budget funding, but an important clarification on how its work is organized: individual projects could receive support from government structures.

Here, they have long given the camera to those who are usually photographed by others

One of the central programs of the organization is called PHOTO IS:VOICE. It is based on the photovoice methodology: the participant is not turned into the object of someone else’s report but is taught to shoot their own life and determine what exactly they want to show to others. For a reader unfamiliar with the term, the meaning is quite simple — a person from the community becomes the author of the story about themselves, not just the subject of a photographer from the outside.

PHOTO IS:RAEL reports that since 2015, more than 10,000 children and adults from over 250 communities in Israel have participated in its social projects. Their works are exhibited at the same International Festival alongside professional photography. The organization directly explains this as an attempt to break the usual hierarchy between those who are shown and those who usually decide how exactly they are shown.

For the Ukrainian group, this story is directly relevant. Here, newcomers from Ukraine do not become an illustration for someone else’s story about refugees or war. The photographers act as authors and choose themselves which images to present to the Israeli audience.

Ukraine at PHOTO IS:RAEL is not appearing for the first time

A careful wording is needed here. The words of Israeli Friends of Ukraine about a “first invited group” do not mean that until 2026 there were no Ukraine or Ukrainian authors at the festival at all.

In 2018, among the 29 winners of the festival’s international Open Call were Kristina Bilyak and Sergey Melnichenko from Ukraine. At that time, PHOTO IS:RAEL received more than 900 portfolios from 52 countries, and the selected projects were shown within the festival theme Relations.

In 2022, Victoria Sorochinski represented Ukraine among the twenty finalists of the Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography — an award by PHOTO IS:RAEL and the Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family Fund. Her project was called POLTAVALAND: Ukraine’s Place of Power, and in another festival event, Sorochinski was already designated as a photographer Ukraine/Israel. This is a particularly close precedent to the current story: Ukrainian biography and Israeli presence intersected on this platform four years ago.

At the same time, the project Ukraine Runs Through It by Justyna Mielnikiewicz was shown. The photographer worked in Ukraine for many years, using the Dnieper as a line through which she told about the history, geography, and differences of the country’s regions. After the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, this long-term project acquired a completely different context — the river became, among other things, a line of war and defense. The exhibition was held in cooperation with the Polish Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Another project from 2022 is In Their Own Words by Israeli photographer Michal Chelbin. In March, after the invasion began, she went to Poland and photographed Ukrainian refugees and Polish families who hosted them. The festival held a separate meeting with Chelbin and journalist Shani Litman about this exhibition.

Later, PHOTO IS:RAEL showed Finding Safe Space by the international Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID. For the Israeli reader, the name is familiar, but the context here is significant: the project told about IsraAID’s work with Ukrainian women and children at the border after the invasion began, as well as programs within Ukraine — from water supply to medical and psychological assistance.

Therefore, the current “first time” is better understood narrowly and precisely: according to Israeli Friends of Ukraine, for the first time, a separate group of Ukrainian photographers currently living in Israel has been invited to PHOTO IS:RAEL. As of October 1, there is no separate card for this exhibition with a full list of authors on the festival’s website yet. The names of the participants, curator, final name of the exhibition, number of works, and configuration of the stand have not yet been publicly disclosed.

This is not the only Ukrainian cultural project in Israel

The current exhibition does not appear out of nowhere. In March, NAnovosti detailed the project “This (Not) My War” in Bat Yam, which brought together 15 Israeli artists born in Ukraine. It was backed by “Platform 202”, created to support Ukrainian authors in Israel; the curators were Vera Gailis and Svetlana Matvienko.

There was a similar process: the Ukrainian theme ceased to exist only within the Ukrainian community and entered the regular cultural space of Israel. That is why the current participation in PHOTO IS:RAEL is logical to view not as a separate action but alongside already emerging projects.

On October 16–17, another exhibition will be held in Tel Aviv, which we wrote about — “Threads of Identity” by Yana Dereza. Modern Ukrainian motankas are used there to talk about memory, relocation, and identity; the project is also held in cooperation with Israeli Friends of Ukraine.

Painting, traditional form, photography — the projects are different. What becomes common is something else: the conversation with the Israeli audience is already happening not only through political statements, rallies, or news from the front.

Who is raising 10,000 shekels

Israeli Friends of Ukraine has been operating in Israel since 2014. The co-founder and head of the organization is Anna Zharova, the co-founder and head of operational activities is Vyacheslav Feldman. IFU is engaged in humanitarian, public, and cultural projects related to Ukraine and Ukrainian-Israeli relations.

According to its published statistics, IFU has sent 157 tons of humanitarian aid, raised about 2 million shekels for the needs of Ukrainians, held 39 protest and charity events after the start of the full-scale war, and provided Ukrainian servicemen with 18,500 Israeli bandages and tourniquets. The organization’s website also includes projects of assistance within Israel after October 7, including Salute IDF and volunteer work in the south of the country.

In the case of PHOTO IS:RAEL, IFU emphasizes: the main part of the expenses is already covered by the organization, and 10,000 ₪ is the missing amount. So it is incorrect to write that the entire Ukrainian exhibition “costs ten thousand shekels”.

The exhibition production itself indeed requires significant funds. To understand the scale, one can take the official example of last year’s festival: in 2025, PHOTO IS:RAEL offered participants a separate structure measuring 3.6 by 2.4 meters with design, printing, texts, and curatorial support for 4,650 ₪. This is the rate of another project and another year, so it cannot be transferred to the Ukrainian exhibition, but it shows what the expenses for such participation generally consist of.

How to support the exhibition

The collection is conducted through Grow. The designation is “Exhibition / תערוכה”, the amount is chosen by the person independently. The organizers promise to place the names of all donors who wish to be publicly mentioned in a separate block of thanks directly on the exhibition stand.

Donation link

There is just over a month left until the opening. During this time, the full program of PHOTO IS:RAEL 2026 should appear, including the names of Ukrainian participants and details of the exhibition itself. Then it will become clearer what stories they will bring to HaArba’a, 5, and how the exhibition will be structured.

The basic structure of the project is known so far: 11 days in the center of Tel Aviv, an international photographic festival, a separate group of Ukrainian authors from Israel, and the missing 10,000 shekels to complete the exhibition. In this form, the story is quite specific and without additional slogans: Ukrainian photographers are offered a professional Israeli platform, and the collection is needed to take advantage of this invitation.

“Culture is what allows Ukrainians to feel stability and resilience, it is our point of support in this difficult time,” says Yevhen Kotlyar. He is almost the only researcher in Ukraine studying synagogue murals. When a rocket damaged the stained glass windows of the Kyiv synagogue, it was he who had to restore them.

In the Great Choral Synagogue in Podil, Kyiv, stained glass windows damaged during a Russian attack are being restored. The work was undertaken by Yevhen Kotlyar, a Kharkiv artist, art historian, and researcher of Jewish heritage, who created these windows more than twenty years ago. They depict the blessing of the Kohanim, Babyn Yar, and the return of Jewish life. Now this story has gained another part, not planned by the author.

Author: R.Verter

On September 14, 2026, Ukraїner published a large article about artist Yevhen Kotlyar and the stained glass windows of the Great Choral Synagogue in Kyiv, and on September 16, they highlighted this story separately on their social networks. The project was prepared in collaboration with UNESCO Ukraine with financial support from the European Union. The Ukraїner material is titled “Light in Motion. Stained Glass of the Synagogue in Kyiv.”

The story there seems to be about an artist and three windows. But if you don’t stop at the windows, it becomes a story of a different scale: Soviet assimilation, a person’s return to their Jewish roots, the destroyed Jewish Kyiv, the revival of the community after the USSR, and a new war during which what has been returned must be saved.

And another coincidence, although the word “coincidence” doesn’t quite fit here. Kotlyar has already restored his apartment three times after Russian attacks. Now he is repairing the synagogue’s stained glass windows.

He first came to the synagogue as an adult

Yevhen Kotlyar was born in Kharkiv in the 1970s. The family was Jewish, but quite typical for the late USSR—assimilated, Soviet in lifestyle, without regular religious practice, although they knew about their origins at home and treated it with respect.

Kotlyar first visited a synagogue in the early 1990s, when religious buildings began to be returned to communities after decades of Soviet bans and seizures. According to his recollections, the feeling was almost physical: as if he had landed on another planet. At that time, he knew little about Jewish religious architecture, but he understood that the walls around him were a place of prayer for people whose connection Soviet life had almost severed.

Later, this became one of the main themes of his work.

Kotlyar became a stained glass artist, art historian, teacher, curator, restorer. He researches synagogue murals, engages in Jewish art in Ukraine. Ukraїner calls him almost the only Ukrainian researcher who systematically works specifically with synagogue murals. Among his projects are “Painted Prayers” and “Ukrainian Shtetl. Return to Places of Power.”

By the way, “shtetl” here is not a beautiful designation for an old town. This word in Yiddish referred to towns and villages in Eastern Europe with a significant Jewish population. Many names that Israelis now encounter in their grandparents’ documents, family books, or Yad Vashem archives were once such vibrant Jewish centers.

And what remains of these places is now actively being tried to at least document. In August, researchers from the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem traveled through Ukrainian Podolia and surveyed more than 30 historical synagogues. NAnovosti detailed this expedition from Jerusalem. Podolia should not be confused with Kyiv’s Podil: Podolia is a large historical region in southwestern Ukraine, while Podil is an old district of Kyiv itself.

And it is precisely in Podil that the Kyiv part of Kotlyar’s story begins.

The synagogue in Podil became a place for the family

After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Kotlyar moved with his family from Kharkiv to Kyiv.

In the capital, the family began attending the Great Choral Synagogue in Podil. For them, it turned into not just a research object or a historical building, but their own community space.

Podil is one of the oldest districts of Kyiv, the lower historical part of the city by the Dnipro. For the history of Kyiv’s Jews, this is also an important place: before the revolution, there was a dense Jewish urban environment with prayer houses, trade, crafts, schools, and charity.

The Great Choral Synagogue itself appeared here at the end of the 19th century. And it arose in a rather unusual way.

The Russian Empire severely restricted the rights of Jews, including the ability to create new prayer buildings. Therefore, the history of the Kyiv synagogue is associated with the community’s attempts to legally circumvent the existing bans—the building was initially designed in such a way as to be able to actually use it for prayer.

This is an important detail. When you look at the old synagogue today as just an architectural monument, it’s easy to lose sight of the question: why did it have to be built this way at all?

The answer is quite simple. Because Jews were not always allowed to build a synagogue normally.

Then the Soviet government came. In 1929, the synagogue was closed. Later it reopened and for decades remained one of the few places of public Jewish religious life in Kyiv.

So today’s functioning synagogue is not a reconstruction of a vanished world. It is a building through which that world somehow continued.

Three stained glass windows. And in them almost the entire history of the community

Kotlyar has three main stained glass plots in the synagogue.

One depicts the hands of the Kohanim during the blessing.

Kohanim are descendants of the ancient Jewish priestly lineage associated with temple service. The gesture with fingers spread in a certain way usually doesn’t need explanation for an Israeli who occasionally visits a synagogue. But for a secular Russian-speaking reader in Ukraine, this image may just look like two raised hands. In Jewish tradition, it has a very specific meaning—a priestly blessing.

A completely different window is dedicated to Babyn Yar.

Babyn Yar is located in Kyiv itself. On September 29 and 30, 1941, German occupation forces and their units shot almost 34,000 Jews there. The killings continued later; the ravine also saw the execution of Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, partisans, and other people.

For Israel, the name “Babyn Yar” has long become one of the symbols of the Holocaust on the territory of the USSR. But for Kyiv, it is also the story of the physical destruction of a huge part of the city’s own residents.

After the war, the Soviet government avoided separate discussions specifically about the Jewish victims of Babyn Yar for decades. In September 1966, people began gathering there independently for the first time. NAnovosti detailed how the first such rally took place and why Soviet documents called it a “shameful gathering of Jewish and Ukrainian nationalists”.

Memory had to be literally returned from below.

Even Anatoly Kuznetsov’s book “Babyn Yar” went through Soviet censorship. In September 2026, a new Ukrainian edition of this documentary book was published in Kyiv; we separately detailed what exactly happened with Kuznetsov’s text and why the full version of the book ended up outside the USSR.

And now the image of Babyn Yar is not in a museum, but in the window of a functioning Kyiv synagogue.

The third stained glass window is about something else: the revival of the Jewish community.

To put it simply, the three works tell one long story: Jewish tradition, destruction, and life after destruction.

Kotlyar created it with glass.

Then a Russian rocket exploded nearby.

“Lord, that’s right across from my stained glass windows”

In October 2025, during a Russian attack on Kyiv, the synagogue was damaged.

The stained glass windows were also affected.

Kotlyar told Ukraїner that when he saw the news about the strike, he immediately thought of his windows. He arrived at the synagogue in the morning. It became clear that things could have ended much worse: the main blast wave passed below, so the stained glass windows were not completely destroyed.

But there was damage.

Two windows had to be dismantled and restored.

This is not an isolated case in the history of Ukrainian Jewish objects after February 2022. The United Jewish Community of Ukraine collected data on about 40 Jewish religious, memorial, educational, and social infrastructure objects damaged during Russian aggression. The list includes synagogues, schools, cemeteries, community buildings, and memorial sites.

NAnovosti published a detailed analysis of this list separately. It’s important to look not only at the number of objects. Behind one item there may be a cemetery, behind another—a school or a functioning community, meaning places of completely different roles and scales.

Here, another thing is important.

For part of the Israeli readership, “the war in Ukraine” is primarily the front, Kyiv, Kharkiv, rockets, politics. But under attack is also the territory where a significant part of Ashkenazi Jewish culture was formed over centuries. Sometimes a rocket hits not just another old building on a Ukrainian street. It could be a place whose name, two generations later, already lives in Haifa, Ashdod, or Be’er Sheva.

Stained glass is not a typical tradition of the old shtetl

This story has another interesting layer.

Kotlyar explains: stained glass itself was not a traditional part of old Eastern European synagogues.

Stained glass culture is much more strongly associated with Christian architecture in Europe. It began to spread more noticeably in synagogues around the 19th century, especially in modernized communities. In a small Ukrainian or Polish shtetl, colored glass in a prayer house was not at all a mandatory thing.

Jewish art never existed in a vacuum. It lived alongside other cultures, adopting some things, adapting others.

This is well seen in the old synagogue murals of Ukraine.

Recently, an exhibition “Painted Prayers” was shown in Kyiv, dedicated to the synagogue murals of Ukrainian Bukovina, which are under threat of disappearance. NAnovosti detailed this exhibition and why Ukrainian students today document Jewish art in small towns of Bukovina.

Here the circle almost closes: Kotlyar deals with the same world that until recently existed separately for most Ukrainians—as “Jewish history.”

But it is not separate.

From Kyiv to Stryi—the buildings are very different, the problem is one

On September 19, 2026, another example appeared.

In Stryi, Lviv region, city authorities and the organization “Spadshchyna UA” signed a memorandum on preparing the restoration of the Great Synagogue of 1817. NAnovosti detailed the history of this building—from the large Jewish community of Stryi to the Holocaust, Soviet warehouse, and the attempt to turn the synagogue into a pool.

Stryi is a city south of Lviv. In old documents, you can find Stryj, Stryi, Стрый, Стрий, or the Hebrew סטרי—these are not different places, but different linguistic forms of one name. For Israeli families, this has practical meaning: a person searches for the city of ancestors in the archive and sometimes thinks they have encountered several different settlements.

With the Kyiv synagogue, the situation is almost the opposite.

In Kyiv, the building is alive, the community is active, and the restorer saves individual damaged elements.

In Stryi, mostly walls remain of the Great Synagogue.

But both stories show one problem: the Jewish heritage of Ukraine today needs to be simultaneously studied, restored, and sometimes simply preserved until the next destruction.

And here a direct Israeli connection appears, not specially invented for the article. The Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in August 2026 studied more than 30 synagogues in Ukrainian Podolia. Specialists photographed facades, documented layouts, architectural details, and remnants of murals. They study not “exotic ruins of Eastern Europe,” but the material world of communities from which part of modern Jewish Israel emerged.

NAnovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency has been returning to this topic repeatedly in recent weeks: Kyiv, Stryi, Podolia, Bukovina appear as separate stories only until they are placed side by side. After that, a map of Jewish life emerges, which once covered a huge part of present-day Ukraine.

Why this is already a Ukrainian story, not just a Jewish one

There is a change that is easy to miss behind the loud events of the war.

Old synagogues in Ukraine are increasingly being studied not only by Jewish organizations.

“Painted Prayers” is shown in Kyiv. Ukrainian specialists work with synagogue murals. Ukraїner, together with UNESCO Ukraine, makes a separate story about Kotlyar. “Spadshchyna UA,” which is not a Jewish fund at all, takes on the Stryi synagogue together with the city.

This does not yet mean that the problem of preserving Jewish heritage is solved. Very far from it. Some buildings stand without roofs, some lost interiors decades ago, some are so rebuilt that without a specialist, it’s already hard to recognize a prayer house.

But the answer to the question “whose story is this” is changing.

A Jewish synagogue in a Ukrainian city is not a foreign monument brought from somewhere. It appeared because Jews were residents of this city. Sometimes they made up a third of the population, sometimes almost half, traded, argued, built houses, opened schools, buried relatives nearby.

Then most of this world was physically destroyed during the Shoah.

What remains was inherited by present-day Ukraine along with all its other history—convenient and inconvenient.

For Israel, everything looks a bit from the other side. People left, cities remained.

Kotlyar restores not only glass

Kotlyar himself says that culture gives a person a sense of existence and a feeling of stability.

In his case, big words are tested in a rather mundane way.

His apartment was shelled—he repaired it.

The stained glass was damaged—he removes the glass and repairs it.

At the same time, one of these stained glass windows is dedicated to Babyn Yar, another shows an ancient Jewish blessing, the third—the return of the community.

Perhaps that’s why the story works without additional pathos.

More than twenty years ago, the artist made windows for the Kyiv synagogue about how Jewish life survived destruction and returned.

He clearly couldn’t have known then that one day he would have to return himself—with restoration tools, after another Russian strike on Kyiv.

The glass was saved.

Now light passes through it again.