We will become stronger! TV is sure: another blockade will not harm the country

Sergei Mitrofanov

Virtue is Dmitry Kiselev. Insult is his mask. And we also very appropriately mentioned the blockade of Leningrad, because a new blockade, as it were, is on the way, we must meet it armed, in every sense of the word.

What Russian officials are offended and offended by

First of all, the fact that “we speak different languages with our Western counterparts” is the main theme of Vesti Nedeli. Not in the sense that in Russian and English (we can still somehow endure this), but at a different cultural level. "The cultural barrier between Europe and Russia is huge!" Highly spiritual and highly moral officials of Russia are forced to deal with formal idiots. “Goat” Stoltenberg (the author of the epithet is Vitaly Tretyakov, dean of the Higher School of Television), he generally “lost touch with reality” (Sergey Lavrov). So we imagine that Stolntenberg walks around like a drunk. Or like a zombie. And his predecessor was no better. Once Anders Fogh Rasmussen went to a meeting with Putin with a voice recorder on and recorded everything that he said to him, and then also published it. Putin still cannot calm down about this and TV Rasmussen recalls this. So, they say, it is not done. A secret is a secret.

(* Hey! It was in 2002. 20 years have passed!)

NATO did not agree with Russia on its expansion

But since TV has begun to delve so deeply into its claims, it is not a sin for it to dig even deeper - about NATO's obligations not to expand. Television and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs found a trace of these obligations in some clumsily printed transcripts. They were shown to us. Far and fast. Of course, shaking these leaves in front of Western diplomats is somewhat strange, if not out of place. These are not ratified commitments. Then the next argument is rolled out. One line from the 1999 OSCE Istanbul Document and the 2010 OSCE Astana Declaration.

Allegedly, the West is tearing out only one slogan from the entire package: each country has the right to choose its allies and military alliances. And there after all there is and utterly magical words. Like, this right is stipulated by the condition and obligation of each country not to strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others.

As you can understand, Russian diplomacy perceives this line as a strict obligation of NATO to coordinate all its actions with Russia. If Russia gives permission, NATO expands; if it doesn't, it doesn't expand, so vote on this issue in NATO itself, don't vote. If we did not agree to the expansion, then collect the belongings (Ryabkov) and roll back.

However, let's not argue, the principle of not stepping on anyone's corns is really good. And it would be nice if he acted in reality. However, a small nuance: the most militarily strong country on the planet - oops, Russia! And she talks about it every day. No one gave her permission to become so strong. Yes, she would have sent everyone with such "permissions." And there is something doubtful in the subsequent and, as it were, implied assertion that Russia's power does not threaten anyone. In fact, Russia itself and in the speeches of its propagandists unequivocally threatens all states, which it calls “buffer states”. And the United States too - as a "decision-making center." Or is there something we don't understand about this?

They endow Ukraine with certificates and stuff the country with weapons

The TV is outraged and seems to be on the case that the West is arming Ukraine under bilateral agreements. Again, the UK sent one or two aircraft with grenade launchers (data on the exact number of sides vary), albeit to the chuckles of propagandists. Like, will you fight with us, hypersonic, with these shovels? And this reproach is generally accepted. British weapons are probably outdated, and helmets and a field hospital from Germany are unlikely to turn Ukraine into a successful aggressor.

However, if the principle of the Istanbul Document is applied to the situation, then Ukraine, as a large European state with a population of a third of the population of Russia, apparently should have the right to be protected by a third of Russia's armament? Is that so? Of course not.

Ukraine does not have a single nuclear bomb or nuclear-powered ballistic missile, while Russia has hundreds and thousands of them. And to say that “NATO has pinned Russia to the wall” with the help of two hundred NATO instructors in Ukraine, who issue certificates for successfully completing a course of firing from light anti-tank weapons, is ridiculous and does not honor those who wrote an ultimatum.

And here is another cool reproach in the heading "Visionary Letter". In 1997, i.e. a quarter of a century ago, influential retired Americans wrote a letter to their president wishing the president to cut military programs because "Russia no longer threatens anyone." Just doves of peace, today we would have such! But here's what is striking: this episode refers to the period of today's cursed "dashing nineties", when the West had not yet recovered from the euphoria of Soviet perestroika. That time has passed irrevocably. Then Russia really was not threatened, but today it “rose from its knees” and who knows? Military exercises - non-stop. And even, anthropologically representing the Ryazan region, TV does not find anything interesting, except for a terribly equipped paratrooper.

Who are we to talk to?

All Western people, according to TV, are of a poor intellectual level. Psaki failed in geography. Once she really made a reservation that gas goes from the West to Russia, and not vice versa, and then she herself admitted that she did not know what “carousels” in elections are in Russian. (*Really, how would she know?)

Anders Fogh Rasmussen , who came to Putin with a voice recorder, is to blame for "grunting" Obama. Perhaps he is not a man at all, but a piglet?

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has failed in history. During a speech in Sydney at the Lowy Institute think tank, she said: “Ukraine is a proud country with centuries of history. They had known invasions before, from the Mongols to the Tatars. They were suffering from a state-sponsored famine”. For this, Zakharova severely scolded her, hinting that Strass turned one invasion into two, not understanding our invasions. In defense of Strass, I will note that the Mongols and Tatars are indeed different ethnic groups, even if at some point they acted together. But I admit: Strass, of course, needs to catch up in comparisons, otherwise how can she talk further with Zakharova and Lavrov?

Western rhetorical "beauties" TV deftly turns into insults.

Blinken describes the relationship between Ukraine and Russia as a relationship between a fox and a chicken coop. It's good that he's not a cockerel, - Kiselev humorously. Ukrainians, thus, turn out to be stupid chickens, they are offended. Or we feel sorry for them, I do not understand.

(*TV viewers will not immediately realize that after the full-length cartoon "Chicken Run" this is in any case not an insulting comparison in the West, in which human chickens flee from a concentration camp of a poultry farm.)

Boris Johnson, distracting from his parties on Downing Street, compares the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine with cutting slices of salami, turning (Kiselev believes) a proud nation into ... sausage. Russia protects Ukraine from this.

Update of the Leningrad blockade

Of course, the Leningrad blockade will always be mournfully commemorated in our country. But as public opinion becomes tense and nervous about any "signals", what TV said is also subject to biased analysis. At the same time, I am far from malice (which sounded in some opposition media) that Putin came to the Piskarevskoye cemetery to grieve for his brother, who died untimely in the blockade, whom he loved very much (died 10 years before Putin was born), and thereby blocked access to graves for the rest of ordinary Leningraders.

There is no doubt that, having launched a crusade against the West, which is superior in numbers and in economic potential, and the “foreign agents” that have joined it, he has good reasons to take care of his security. But we are worried that we are being led, as it were, to the justification of the current economic blockade, urging us to experience almost pleasure, joy and patriotic enthusiasm from this.

In the project "Reading Olga Bergholz's Poems", the artists of the Seventh Symphony series, with the most righteous look and tears in their eyes, read lines about the war as the best days of our lives ("... In the dirt, in the darkness, in hunger, in sadness, / where death, like a shadow, dragged on its heels, / we were so happy, / we breathed such stormy freedom, / that our grandchildren would envy us..."), and about victory ("...how will we live when victory comes"), with which still to figure out what to do.

Isn't the idea being introduced that it will be difficult, poor, inflationary and scarce, but there is no need to worry, our grandchildren will envy us, and Victory is still guaranteed.