At Rate It Occupied Bakhmut, Russians Say, Moscow will Occupy Ukraine in about 9500 Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 23 – Russian forces took eight months to occupy the 41.6 square kilometers of Bakhmut. That is 0.0069 percent of the territory of Ukraine. At that rate, the Russian military will need about 9500 years to occupy all of that country – and then only if Moscow can organize the entire world proletariat or get arms from another planet.

            That is just one of the new Russian anecdotes that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled that tell far more about what the people there are thinking than do official announcements (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/45876/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       In the end, the US will get Ukraine, while China will get Russia.

·       Russian officials have banned trucks from using the Crimean Bridge, an action that effectively turns that structure into a meaningless art installation of minimum value.

·       Nikolay Patrushev said Europe was going to suffer when winds carry radiation from Ukraine westward. He had no comment about what will happen in Russia when the winds resume their normal flow from west to east.

·       Moscow says that Belgorod was not a failure but a success. According to its spokesmen, Russian forces lured Ukrainian ones into a trap and then destroyed them, all exactly according to plan.

·       The Duma is now preparing legislation that will require Russians to write at least three denunciations a month.