‘The Good News is that Putin will Die Some Day; The Bad is that We Won’t Live in that Wonderful Time,’ Some Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov 10 – With rumors swirling that Putin has died and only his doubles are appearing in public, Russians are reflecting on what his real passing would mean. Some say that the good news is that he will eventually die but the bad is that those alive now won’t live “in that wonderful time.”

            That is just one of the new anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has assembled (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47127/-) that reflect what Russians are now thinking about. Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       A young child asks his grandfather when life will get better in Russia. His grandfather replies that it will as soon as the US dies. That is what his grandfather told him when he was little, the boy’s grandfather says.

·       Kazakhstan President Tokayev couldn’t arrest Putin not because his country hadn’t ratified the Rome Statute which requires it but because the Kremlin leader had already died.

·       VTsIOM released a poll showing that 85 percent of Russians aged 18 to 24 trust the police, the highest of any age cohort. That only shows that on the day of the survey in police stations, most of those detained were young.

·       Since the beginning of 2023, Russian officials say, 410,000 people have been accepted into the army on contract. They aren’t saying where the previous 410,000 now are.

·       The best place to store your savings is in pleasant memories because they are certain to become increasingly valuable and can’t be taken away.

·       Adam Kadyrov is going to have surgery to enlarge his chest so that it can accommodate his growing number of medals.

·       Most of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet can now be seen only in old photographs or if you are a scuba diver.