Russia’s Next President won’t have to Think: He or She will Simply have to Do the Opposite of What Putin has Done, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 6 – According to an anecdote currently circulating in Moscow, Russians feel that their country’s next president will have it easy. He or she won’t have to come up with a new program or even think about what to do. Instead, the new will simply have to remember what Putin has done and then do exactly the reverse.

            Other jokes and anecdotes assembled by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova this week (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/44588/-) include the following.

·       Putin hasn’t yet called French President Macron, the Kremlin says, because the Kremlin leader can’t yet reach the phone at the end of his long desk.

·       Putin better hurry up with plans to visit Donbass. Otherwise, he may miss his chance just as he did when he didn’t go to Kherson in a timely fashion.

·       An Oryol KPRF deputy has called for sending stray dogs carrying explosives to be sent to Ukraine to blow up that country’s tanks. Local people say that that idea should lead to another: the deputy should be sent to Ukraine carrying explosions on his back instead of the dogs and he should wear a poster declaring ‘For Putin and the Rothenbergs!’

·       The fact that Russian television is now talking about building bomb shelters in Russian cities shows that Putin really did have a plan and that he is a genius who foresaw a development that no mere mortal thought possible.

·       When Putin was caught driving a Mercedes across the Kerch bridge, his spokesman explained that this was all the fault of Beijing: ‘These Chinese have failed again to meet all the deadlines for delivering domestic products to us.’