Moscow Must Create a Special Army Unit for Children of Elite So They Too Can Fight in Ukraine, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – In response to Federation Council head Valentina Matviyenko’s statement that when Russians hear about military conflicts, they rush to recruitment offices to join up, ordinary Russians have responded with an anecdote declaring that Moscow should set up a special unit for children of the elite so that they will be sure to be able to do their duty.

            That is just one of the new jokes from Russia offered this week by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova about the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Russian Federation (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/43029/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       The Russian government says that 85 percent of all Russian IT specialists who emigrated after the start of the war in Ukraine have returned. But no one need worry about any closing of the borders until the powers that be say that 146 percent have.

 ·       Ukrainian Orthodox leaders who are calling for the Universal Patriarch in Constantinople to oust Patriarch Kirill because of his bombastic statements about the war seem to have forgotten who really can do that. Don’t they know that it is Putin and Putin alone who appoints and dismisses the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church?

 ·       There are some things that can be counted on to remain constant: water flowing down hill, fire  burning, and Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka saying that he is preparing to take part in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.

 ·       Putin wakes up in his bunker after a nightmare. In his dream, he pounds on the door and demands to be let out. But then he hears a voice from outside: ‘”Prisoner Putin! Are you being rowdy again?”

 ·       Russians don’t want to watch Putin’s direct line; they want to see a straight line on his cardiograph. [The Russian word for “direct” and for “straight” is one and the same.]

 ·       The Russian ambassador to the US said shelling Russian cities with American weapons supplied to Ukraine is unacceptable villainy but that Russian forces have the complete right to shell Ukrainian cities.

 ·       Russia is returning to the past so quickly that soon it will be necessary to dispense with its alphabet or dressing in anything but wool and scales.

 ·       Russia tested Zircon cruise missiles near the Finnish border after Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO. Obviously, it is hard to dissuade a neighbor from buying a gun if you are firing right over his head.

 ·       Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych have been resuscitated by US vbiolabs in Ukraine so that they could come back and kill two Donbass heroes, Motorola and Givi. Having achieved that, the two Ukrainian nationalists have also organized attacks on Russians across Ukraine.

 ·       Putin has ordered those associated with unfriendly countries, who support anti-Russian sanctions or discredit the Russian army or who express a lack of respect for Russia and its people to pay for anything they want to buy in rubles, making the Russian national currency the most horrific punishment anyone can suffer.