Empire strikes back
How do you say ‘irony’ in Russian?
JUST AS there were exactly one year ago, there are all kinds of warnings coming from allied intelligence about the Russians. Ukrainians and Western spies are shouting to the world, just as they did in early February 2022: The Cossacks are gathering, and they’re coming in masses.
The world watched—and filmed— as the Russians did exactly what our spooks said they’d do. And now the intelligence types are warning about a new buildup of Russian men/cannon fodder.
This year’s reports say
Vlad the Mad may send another 500,000 soldiers into the battle once the thaw begins. And they may attack Ukraine from the north and south, in a pincer movement that tank brigades were famous for doing during the Second World War.
Speaking of WWII, which the Russians call The Great Patriotic War, President Putin visited Stalingrad this week to rally his country around the coming spring offensive. He spoke before the memorial at Stalingrad (now called Volgograd; it was safe to rename it after Stalin died) on a hill overlooking the Volga River.
That’s where the Russians, with the help of American Lend-Lease equipment, stopped the German army’s advance toward the Caucasus and more oil. In a war of many bloody battles involving thousands of casualties each day, the battle of Stalingrad is remembered as the bloodiest of them all. Maybe as many as 2 million Soviet and German fighters died there.
The battle was such ruination for the Germans that the Nazis running the show in Berlin had to gather troops in the occupied territories to throw into the East. Whole battle groups were lost, surrounded and cut off, or gunned down in retreat.
Hitler had ordered his troops not to try to break out or retreat to better positions or surrender in impossible positions—in effect, he ordered them to die in place. Many did.
But why Vladimir Putin would pick this city, no matter its name today, for a speech on his war is tough to guess.
“Those who draw European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia and … expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently don’t understand that a modern war with Russia will be different for them,” President Putin said to cheers. “We don’t send our tanks to their borders but we have the means to respond, and it won’t end with the use of armored vehicles; everyone must understand that.”
A not-so-vague reference to nuclear weapons.
But somebody should tell Vladimir Vladimirovich, probably in private where he wouldn’t be embarrassed publicly: The battle of Stalingrad in late 1942/early 1943 pitted the Russians, the defenders of their soil, against the Germans, the invaders.
At that time, the Russians were defending their land against fascists who invaded on the pretense of “liberating” peoples who didn’t want anything to do with them.
Nowadays it’s just the opposite. We wonder if anybody has the guts to explain the irony to Comrade Putin.