Underground Diplomacy or Conspiracy: Putin’s Agent in Netanya’s Planetarium

Do you remember that sound? The piercing whistle that tears through the night sky, followed by the dull thuds that shatter windows from Tel Aviv and Bat Yam to Rehovot and Haifa. That is the sound of Iranian missiles.

While the entire country holds its breath awaiting the next escalation, and while our Home Front Command reservists drill for rubble clearance, the Netanya City Council has decided that now is the perfect time for clandestine meetings with “friends” from Moscow.

A Masterclass in Deception

Just days ago, the office of Netanya’s new mayor, Avi Slama, via Shula Kadosh, officially issued a statement in response to public inquiries: the scheduled visit of Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin was canceled. Citizens had protested, activists demanded the propagandist be barred, and the authorities seemingly listened.

But was it a lie?

While official letters to residents claimed the “event is canceled,” a warm reception was held behind closed doors, far from the press. Yurchikhin and the Russian Ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, held their meeting at the Netanya Planetarium. The orchestrator of this underground reception was City Council member Julianna Ben-Avraham (Kachol Lavan party), according to the pro-Russian groups on social media.

However, members of the city council state that the official municipal event was canceled, around 200 tickets were canceled, and all the money was returned to the customers. Despite this fact, the russian groups oriented on the disinformation misled the audience by claiming the closed event for the embassy school and the kids of Russian diplomats in Israel, as a municipal event. According to my sources in the Netanya city council, zero assistance was provided for organizing this event from the side of the mayor’s office.

Who is Fyodor Yurchikhin?

Let’s call a spade a spade. Yurchikhin is not just a “cosmonaut.” He is an official trusted representative of Vladimir Putin. He is a strong supporter of the war in Ukraine, a man who has visited occupied territories to bolster morale, and a symbolic face of the very system that has become Iran’s primary military patron.

The Orbit of Terror: The Russia-Iran Axis

While Ben-Avraham and other organizers of the event shake hands with Yurchikhin, the aerospace structures he represents are actively working to compromise Israel’s security. The collaboration is no longer speculative; it is a clear and present danger:

• Launching Iran’s “Eyes” in the Sky: Russia has become the primary launchpad for Iranian intelligence. Satellites like “Khayyam” and the recently deployed “Paya” (Tolou-3), launched via Russian Soyuz rockets, provide the IRGC with high-resolution imagery. These are the eyes that study our airbases, our ports, and our residential neighborhoods.

• Precision and Blind Spots: Russian technology is instrumental in helping Iran’s missiles become more accurate. Intelligence reports suggest that data shared through Russian-Iranian cooperation helps Tehran identify “blind spots” in Israel’s multi-layered air defense systems (Iron Dome, David’s Sling).

• Ballistic Modernization: Russia isn’t just launching satellites; it is providing technical expertise to modernize Iran’s ballistic missiles. The very missiles hitting Israel today are being refined with the help of the industry Yurchikhin represents.

The only conclusion out of this whole story is that a wide net of pro-Putin Israelis in a tight connection with the Russian embassy in Israel, creating another misleading campaign to legitimize the Russian outcasts in Western society, and we can’t remain silent.

P.S. The next time we are forced into our mamads and miklats at 4:00 AM, remember: Russia is an architect of that terror, and so are those in our own country who choose to legitimize it.