‘If It Weren’t for Ukraine,’ Russians Say, ‘We’d have Defeated NATO Long Ago’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 12 – Some Russians joke that were it not for Ukraine, their country would have succeeded in defeating its chief enemy, NATO, long ago, just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled that tell so much about how people in Putin’s Russia view the world.

            Among the best of the rest in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44895/-) are the following:

·       If Moscow legalizes embezzlement and bribery, all Russian officials will instantly become open, honest and complacent.

·       Killing 100,000 more Russians or 100,000 more Ukrainians won’t end the war; but killing just one man in the Kremlin will.

·       In Soviet times, the church was separate from the state and people could go to church to pray; but now when anyone does, he or she finds the state is already there.

·       Putin has achieved another success not against NATO but for it: Sweden says it is willing to have nuclear weapons based on its territory.

·       Volodymyr Zelensky went from being a comic to being a president. Dmitry Medvedev has followed the exactly opposite course.

·       The Duma has decided once again to expand the legal restrictions for its citizens.

·       The most famous Russian brand now is the Wagner PMC just as almost a century ago the swastika was the most famous German brand.

·       Putin believes that the limits on the age of those subject to military service should be like the borders of the Russian Empire: they shouldn’t end anywhere.