Putin’s War Going ‘According to Plan,’ Russians Joke, and Soon the Army will be Defending Kursk and Belgorod Oblasts

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 20 – A new Russian anecdote puts its own spin on the Kremlin’s insistence that Putin’s war in Ukraine is going “according to plan.”  Following recent defeats by the Russian army, some Russians are suggesting that Putin’s plan includes having the military withdraw into their own country and defend Kursk and Belgorod oblasts.

            That is just one of the new jokes now circulating in Russia that Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/42955/-). Among the others, the following are especially noteworthy:

·       Russia will soon have its own battery-powered car, but the battery will be so big that it will have to be towed on a trailer if the car is to go any distance.

 

·       Those who want the USSR back should be celebrating: They now have censorship, a sick old man in power, 99 percent approve of him, and Russian soldiers are dying in a war abroad. They only have to wait for ration coupons, Yugoslav boots once every six months, and then they can put crystal in the cabinet and nail a carpet to the wall.

 

·       With all its resources, Russia could easily have become a beacon for development, but for some reason, it decided to have a president for life, thieving officials and merciless oligarchs who choose to live abroad.

 

·       In 862, Russians turned to the Scandinavians and asked them to come and rule over us. Now, Russians, equally fearful of disaster, are turning to the Chinese and asking them to rule. But the Chinese aren’t eager to do so. They figure they can get what they want out of Russia without taking on that burden too.

 

·       Given where Russia is heading, it is obvious what the elite is doing during working hours. What is uncertain is what they do on their time off when they are recovering from their heavy drinking.

 

·       Someone from Moscow arrives in Israel seeking to emigrate. The Israeli official notes that he has put down that both his parents are Russians. Who is the Jew in your family, the potential immigrant is asked? No one, the Russian says; “I’m the first.”

 

·       Russians are now quoting Bertrand Russell’s observation that “in a democracy, fools hav ehte right to vote; in a dictatorship, they have a right to rule.”

 

·       Those who want to defeat the West and establish an empire are the very same people who for a quarter of a century couldn’t provide warm bathrooms in schools, provide gas to apartments, build normal roads or at least come up with some products that anyone would want to buy.

 

·       A Pskov paratrooper, a Kadyrov marauder, a Moscow military advisor, a Buryat tankman, and a Rostov Cossack are returning from Ukraine. Who’s driving, you ask? The answer is obvious: the man who’s bringing back a refrigerator.