People of the same family, or the same wider family, can decide to follow different paths. Recently there were the announcement of two appointments spaced so closely to each other, that they caught my attention:
25 Jun, 2025 15:43
‘Ukraine can win’ – new NATO commander
Alexus Grynkewich has said Kiev is fighting with tenacity the US can barely imagine
The
Wiki has:
Alexus Gregory Grynkewich is an American of Belarusian descent . His great-grandfather Ilya Grynkewich immigrated to the United States in 1899 from Minsk, then located in the Russian Empire. His father, Gregory Wayne Grynkewich (1949–2012), was a scientist and inventor.
If his great-grandfather was from Minsk, then Alexus Gregory Grynkewich, whose family obviously know where they came from, and honour that, might have some relations in what is now Belarus and the Russian federation:
From a
page,
Cousin Chart – Family Relationships Explained, September 24, 2022 by Gail, there is this image:

From the above perspective, Grynkewich might have relatives through his great-great-grandparents, which then could be third cousins, or third cousins once removed of the newly appointed NATO commander.
In the following story, the family connections could be closer:
27 Jun, 2025 10:56
Incoming MI6 boss’ grandfather was Ukrainian Nazi ‘Butcher’ – UK media
The Daily Mail has confirmed that Blaise Metreweli’s grandfather was a war criminal, while claiming this has no bearing on her service.
This story goes:
Blaise Metreweli, who is scheduled to take over leadership of the UK’s foreign intelligence service (MI6) in October, is the
granddaughter of a Nazi collaborator who oversaw atrocities in occupied Ukraine during World War Two, the Daily Mail has revealed.
Metreweli’s father, Constantine, was naturalized in British-administered Hong Kong in 1966. The London Gazette
identified him at the time as
Dobrowolski, known as Constantine Metreweli, of uncertain nationality.
In a story published Thursday, the Mail confirmed that
Constantine was the son of a German-Polish Ukrainian man –
also named Constantine – who worked for the Nazis and was implicated in the mass killing of Jews and other atrocities during World War II.
The newspaper said it had reviewed “hundreds of pages of documents held in archives in Freiburg, Germany, detailing the extraordinary – and blood-soaked – life and times of Dobrowolski, which are themselves worthy of a spy thriller.”
According to the records,
Dobrowolski Sr. was born into a family of noble landowners in what is now Ukraine’s Chernigov Region. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the estate was violently plundered, leading the younger Constantine to become a fierce enemy of the new authorities.
He was imprisoned in 1926 for anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic agitation. He
joined the German occupiers at the first opportunity in 1941, and earned the nickname ‘Butcher’ for his brutality. He is believed to have been killed in 1943.
His wife, Barbara (née Varvara Andreeva), married Georgian-born David Metreweli in Yorkshire in 1947.
[...]
The way it reads to me, correct me if you have a better interpretation, is that:
Blaise Metreweli is the daughter of Constantin Metreweli (Dobrowolski) whose father was Constantin Dobrowolski (Sr.)
Constantin Dobrowolski (Sr.) passed away in 1943, and later his wife, Varvara (Barbara) Andreeva, married Georgian born David Metreweli in 1947. This could be taken to mean that David Metreweli is the stepfather of Constantin Metreweli (Dobrowolski). Thus it would seem that the father of Blaise Metreweli could pass off as someone from the area of what was the USSR.
Recalling also the background of the current Ukrainian commander,
Aleksandr Syrsky, whose family comes from Vladimir 200 km east of Moscow, it is interesting to consider the epic dimension of the current conflict by referring to the Indian
Mahabharata which describes a war between
cousins, since the princes of the two sides, the
Pandavas and the
Kauravas, shared a common grandfather.
Then as now, family relations can be difficult; though
Vichitravirya is listed in the genealogy of the
Wiki as the grandfather, when we check the notes, the real grandfather was the half-brother of this king, sage
Vyasa, since Vichitravirya died of consumption without leaving issue, after which his two wifes, the sisters
Ambika and
Ambalika were approached by the half-brother to save the linage.
A chapter of the epic, the
Bhagavad Gita, describes how the hero, Arjuna, asks his charioteer, Lord Krishna, to draw up his chariot between the armies in order that he may take a closer look. Having been situated between the army of his siblings on one side, and the army of his cousins on the other, Arjuna is overcome with love because he and they have common ancestors, but then Krishna reminds him about his mother,
Kunti, who was the embodiment of virtue. At the end of the discourse, Arjuna, having left behind misplaced emotions of pity and anger, has been fortified with wisdom and is ready to fight for what is right, though it entails fighting cousins, who have become the tools of injustice. It may be symbolic that in the story their father
Dhritarāshtra was born blind, which could be taken to mean spiritually blind, or that his sons were blinded by greed. In the war which basically ended with the Pandavas winning but with both sides being vastly diminished, the army of the sons of Dhritarāshtra. was described as unlimited while that of the sons of Pandu was limited, and the latter was supported by guidance from above, symbolized by the presence of Krishna, so that the field overall was balanced.