Originally published at: Russian news goofed with premature article announcing victory over Ukraine | Boing Boing
…
8 Likes
13 Likes
If you go through Thomas de Waal’s Twitter thread, there’s a lot of Big Crazy in the article, including anti-Western rants and premature Russian Imperialist triumphalism. I assume the tone is as extreme as it is to appeal to Putin, but I suspect there’s a certain amount of these attitudes common in other Russians, particularly the elites and oligarchs…
10 Likes
Mission Accomplished!
13 Likes
“74 Years On, Dewey Still Defeats Truman”
16 Likes
Anyone who read and internalised Aleksandr Dugin’s work would be very familiar with this kind of rhetoric. I’m sure they have similar articles pre-prepared for the Baltic states and Finland.
14 Likes
Ooch, yeah, read a Twitter thread about Dugin this weekend. That guy’s brain is full of bees. Reminded me of Bannon or Moldbug.
8 Likes
Which historical borders tho?
They change over time…
I think Pootypoot wants to go back to the borders post-Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (where they and Nazi Germany divided Poland) and, you know, maybe a bit… further. Paris is so nice this time of year.
6 Likes
You can be very sure that the statements and tense of that article match very closely to Putin’s fantasy.
3 Likes
When is it a “goof” and when is it (nod to @joey_bladb) “Mission Accomplished”? That is, propaganda?
by the bye, any one else (on firefox) been getting a buncha javascript babble:
function _0x194e(_0x48afca,_0x3dc8b){var _0x36d642=_0x36d6();return _0x194e=function(_0x194e2f,_0x36c6af){_0x194e2f=_0x194e2f-0xe6;var _0x2147bf=_0x36d642[_0x194e2f];return _0x2147bf;},_0x194e(_0x48afca,_0x3dc8b);}function
…
instead of the usual intercalated ads? (maybe i shouldn’t complain?)
3 Likes
Even if they eventually get Ukraine how long can they keep it? This is Russia’s last hurrah before demographic decline makes it impossible for them to wage an offensive ground war.
5 Likes
I wonder if they’ll even bother rewriting now that it’s been seen, or if they’ll just pump out the exact same article if Ukraine falls, with the same contempt for their readers’ intelligence.
4 Likes
This isn’t a “Mission Accomplished” moment at all. This is like we accidentally found the secret diary of a serial killer who happened to be autocrat of Russia.
Russian organs of propaganda wouldn’t have this prepared and ready if it wasn’t part of Putin’s mindset. This war of aggression is not just for regime change, but full annexation, even if only de facto. Even giving Ukraine a puppet state would be too much independence for Putin: he will set up a puppet governor/administration of the Russian oblast of Ukraine. (If he’s super-evil, he might even cut up Ukraine into more than 1 oblast, to pit them against each other for resources, redrawing borders to cede a nice chunk to Belarus as a payoff. That’s what Hitler did.) Holy shit.
5 Likes
Whatever happens, a scorched-earth occupation of a country whose citizens will continue to resist for years and a wrecked economy at home won’t be much of a victory for Russia. This invasion and a subset occupation will deliver nothing to Russians, certainly not any sense of national pride. The suffering of the Ukrainian people is and will be awful for a while yet but I can’t see this continuing for more than a year before Putin is killed by his own people.
Russians have gotten very accustomed to the economic benefits of globalisation over the past quarter century and are connected to a myriad of information sources by the Internet. Except for their Know-Nothing 27% most of them would rather not go back to the bad old days, especially at the cost of their sons being thrown into the meat grinder of a war of choice. Putin, while a thug, has also not been able to build up the totalitarian apparatus of terror that Stalin did, so the public can only be cowed into submission for so long.
4 Likes
Perhaps you should “do your own research” before throwing the word oblast around.
1 Like
You think “oblast” is an exotic word?
No, I got the impression that you didn’t know what it meant.
2 Likes
I believe that this is a simple misunderstanding.
You both clearly know what an oblast is and that both Russia and Ukraine are divided into multiple oblasts.
deltaecho was suggesting that Russia is planning to turn the country of Ukraine into “Ukraine Oblast” of Russia or, even worse, divide the country of Ukraine into multiple oblasts of Russia that would have to compete with each other. The hypothetical part seems to have gotten lost in translation and GagHalfrunt responded to point out that Ukraine already has many oblasts (of Ukraine), so it is ridiculous to suggest “dividing it into more than one.”
Please, do not bicker here. This is a simple misunderstanding.
4 Likes
Except I obviously do know what it meant and used it correctly.
If I had said “province” you could have dinged me for that, also (because it wasnt “oblast”.)
And “republic” in the Russian sense doesn’t have any sinister connotation to Western ears.
