After Two Months of His Special Operation, Putin hasn’t Defeated Ukraine but He has Defeated Russia, Some Joke

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – This is just one of the political anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/42837/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       The pope got it exactly right unfortunately. He called Patriarch Kirill Putin’s altar boy.

·       All the talk about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine suggests that Putin is planning to keep his promise that Russians will end up in heaven. How can someone talk him out of keeping that promise when he has broken all his others?

·       Russians now say that they need 24 percent more income each month than they did a year ago to live a dignified life, an obvious income that the Russian economy and living standards are rising fast and outstripping inflation.

·       Russian manufacturers have released their recipe for sausage: water, palm oil, emulsifier, flavoring and a little witchcraft. Clearly the most important is the last.

·       God preserve us from fakes, criticism and discrediting anyone. But while remaining strictly within the bounds of legality, one can’t help noticing that in terms of their professionalism and skill, the Russian ministries of defense and foreign affairs are absolutely tied.

·       Kremlin loyalists say that they live well and will force everyone else to live the same way. If they don’t agree, they’ll regret it.

·       The world now knows where ostriches learned to bury their heads in the sand: from the Russian people who despite everything continue to believe what their leaders say.

·       Washington should give Putin its highest honor because no one else kept so much money abroad where the Americans could get it and no one else has ceded the oil and gas market to the US. Clearly, no one has done as much for Americans as Putin as in such a short time.

·       After Lavrov said Hitler had Jewish roots, loyalist Russians rushed to agree with him. If tomorrow someone in the Kremlin says that Chukotka was originally inhabited by Papuans and is the ancestral home of elephants and bananas, state propaganda will promote this discovery and denying it will be declared a crime. The opinions of Papuans and residents of Chukotka will not be of any interest to anyone.