Russia’s Enemies Can Attack It without Ever Leaving Their Own Territory, Russians Reflect

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 20 – According to the latest anecdote from Russia, many there say that one of the things that makes Russia such a surprising place is that enemies can attack it without leaving their own territories as the Syrians did in Syria, the English from England and now the Ukrainians in Ukraine.

            Among the other anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44225/-), the following are especially instructive as to the current state of thinking in Russia today:

·       Officials are now explaining that Russian forces in Ukraine have retreated not because they have been defeated but because their commanders want to give the newly mobilized more time and opportunity to practice their newly acquired military skills.

·       When the Moscow mayor congratulated residents of his city on the end of mobilization there, his words sounded ot man like the appeal of the mayor of Pompeii to those who had survived the eruption of Vesuvius.

·       After a Russian soldier released from Ukrainian captivity told Russia Today that he had not been tortured, the siloviki went to work on him and got him to change his story. Everyone knows how the Russian news agency will now report what happened: the poor Russian was tortured so badly that he forgot everything and so had to be reminded by the officers of the Russian force structures.

·       Uganda has now offered to sent electric cars it manufactures to Russia, yet another victory for Vladimir Putin who after 22 years in power has managed to get cars from a country as poor as Uganda.

·       Putin has reportedly asked St. Peter to lower the demands for entering heaven to all those the Kremlin has mobilized and then have died in Ukraine.

·       Moscow says there is no war but has introduced military, that is, martial, law.

·       A Saratov woman has denounced Ukraine for the death of her son and ignored the guilt of the one who ordered him to fight there. Doing that is like blaming the bumper of a car for the death of a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver.