Kremlin’s War Goals have Changed from Seizing All of Ukraine in 2022 to Occupying a Third of It Now and Perhaps to Defending Moscow in the Future, Some Russians Conclude

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 5 – Kremlin propagandists forget that Russians have longer memories than their leaders do. At the start of the expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow said its war goals were to seize all of Ukraine. Now, Russian officials are saying that their goals are to occupy a third of that country.

            If that trend continues, some Russians are joking bitterly, then, in the future, the Kremlin may announce as its war goals first the defense of the Donbass and then the defense of Moscow itself, hardly an indication that Russia is on the way to victory that Putin promised just under two years ago.

            That is just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/47479/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Ukraine is behaving in a most vile fashion when it attacks Russian war planes sitting peacefully on airfields after flying missions against Ukrainian targets.

·       Russians say they wish the presidential elections now schedule for March would simply be cancelled. That way, Russians could live without a president for at least six years.

·       Chinese cars being imported to Russia have a real problem: their gas pedals made of plastic fall off when temperatures plunge to minus 25 degrees Celsius.

·       Any Russian who doubts an icon can keep Russians warm even if their heating systems have failed will be charged with insulting the feelings of believers.

·       Belgorod residents have been told to cover their windows with tape to prevent glass from flying and themselves being injured in the case of Ukrainian attacks. But one city resident suggested that it would help them more if “the crazy Kremlin elders were replaced with more or less sane people.”