Is It Time to Start De-Nazifying Russia by Bombing Moscow? Some Russians Ask

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 1 – Now that anti-Semitic graffiti are appearing on Moscow houses where Jews live and Moscow landlords are refusing to rent to Caucasians and Central Asians, some Russians are asking whether it is time to start a de-Nazification campaign in Russia and begin by bombing Moscow as the Kremlin has done in Ukraine.

            That is just one of the observations Russians are making in the form of anecdotes assembled by Russian journalist Tatyana Puskaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47071/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov says that anyone taking part in “unsanctioned riots” must be arrested, a term of phrase that he suggests that there are such a thing as “sanctioned” ones and that those who take part in them should be left alone.

·       After rumors spread that Putin had died, nearly half a million Russians queried Yandex as to the truth of those reports.

·       Daghestanis who destroyed much of the Makhachkala airport during their protest against Israel have been sentenced to a few days of administrative arrest for hooliganism, while Russians who like the wrong post on the internet are being sent to prison for up to two years.

·       The Kremlin says the Ukrainian president is behind the events in Daghestan. That raises the question: if Zelensky is so much in control of the situation in that north Caucasus republic, why does anyone need Putin?

·       The Russian finance minister says that any sanctions on the Russian diamond industry will hurt “the most vulnerable segments” of the Western population, who include quite obviously impoverished pensioners who want to give their wives jewelry on their birthdays.

·       Russian billionaires Aven and Friedman now say their investments in the West were bad choices; they don’t yet say the same thing about their investments in Putin.

·       Liberal Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin has been registered as a candidate to oppose Putin in the 2024 presidential elections. His chief advantage, Russians say, is that at 60, Nadezhdidn looks less fit and energetic than Putin who is 11 years older.