Moscow Insists It Didn’t Blow Up the Kakhovka Dam Just as It says It Didn’t Invade Ukraine – and with Exactly the Same Credibility, Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 7 – Russian state television insists that Moscow didn’t blow up the Khakova dam with exactly the same assurance and exactly the same credibility that the same sources insist that Moscow has not invaded Ukraine. As far as Kakhovka is concerned, there is no better evidence of just who is responsible.

            This is just one of the anecdotes Russians are now telling each other that have been collected and posted online by Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/45993/-). The best of the rest include the following:

·       When Patriarch Kirill and the director of the Tretyakov Gallery clashed over who should have the Rublyov Trinity icon, Putin suggested cutting it in half. Kirill immediately agreed saying that was a wise decision, but the Tretyakov director better Putin not to cut the ican on half but to give it to the church. And so the dispute was resolved.

·       It is now clear that the Russian General Staff has adopted Kutuzov’s strategy as the basis of plans for the war in Ukraine: first, the Russian army will pull back to Moscow, burn it, and then rush to take Kyiv.

·       Three hundred animals died in the zoo at New Kakhovka after the dam was destroyed, and uncounted other animals died as well. If there is a God, Russians say, the people who did this will forever drown in their cages in hell.

·       If the world was being terrorized by an evil genius with a super mind, one might understand what is going on.  But when this is being done by a petty, primitive and uneducated nonentity, then it is clear that the real problem lies with the world.

·       Putin plans to return drawing to the school curriculum so that Russians will be able to draw red lines.

·       Russians are refusing to take vacations in Ukraine. They need to be compelled to do so because otherwise they are playing into the hands of the Ukrainians.

·       After Russia loses the war, Dmitry Medvedev can be counted on to say that everything he said during the conflict was a contribution to the maximum mobilization of the Ukrainian people “in their just struggle against the aggressor.”

·       Those who say Putin doesn’t personally decide on the shelling of Ukrainian cities because that is not at his level and those who say that he personally ordered the return of drawing to schools are one and the same.