Russians: Like children or drunkards, but armed with tanks and cruise missiles

Sometimes it's tough being a czar. The Russians do what Putin tells them to - in return for heating and electricity. But now Ukraine is attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure - and some blame Putin.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

When I was a language student in the Soviet Union, in Moscow of the late 1980s and early 1990s, we foreigners always joked that Russians had no limits, no holding back, no thought for tomorrow.

As soon as somebody opened a bottle of vodka, or two or ten, all concern for tomorrow or plans would go out the window, and it would just be party time, no limits.

Sure, I know that we are not supposed to use such crude stereotypes anymore – not even about our enemies, wink-wink? – but you ask anybody who has lived in Russia during those decades.

But don’t take my word for it. I had the opportunity to meet many times with the Soviet leader at that time, Mikheil Gorbachev, and he never tired of repeating that “drinking is tearing our families and country apart, people get drunk today, and they cannot go to work tomorrow.”

The numbers don’t lie. When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Russians consumed 15 liters of alcohol a year. That was the average per capita – including babies and babushkas - so imagine the consumption amongst people of working age, several liters of vodka each month.

When Gorbachev tried to curtail the drinking – and the dying – from alcohol abuse, he was immediately dubbed and hated as “Mineralniy Sekretar” = “mineral-water-drinking general secretary”, a word play on his title of General Secretary.

At Moscow University, I had a very boring and bad teacher. When he heard about the new anti-drinking laws, he exclaimed from the podium, “How will I ever get through my lectures without vodka?!” Several students shouted back at him, “How will we ever get through your lectures without vodka?”

The best illustration was probably that a particularly popular brand of vodka simply produced their bottles without a resealable cap, like we have today on some beers - once you had ripped off the seal, you might as well continue till the bottle was empty. And they did.

During those years, and well into the 1990s, I spent a lot of time as a PhD student in Moscow - studying first the Soviet and later the Russian relationship to NATO. I have been at “learned” conferences where Russian military experts and officers would go out drinking after the first day’s deliberations and simply fall asleep in a corner of the conference room, so they were ready for the next day, to be awoken by an adjutant, quickly throw down 50 grams of vodka and off we go!

In 1994, Russian experts estimated that almost one million people died from alcohol abuse and related diseases. During the decade 1991-2001, between three and four million Russians died from alcohol. One in three deaths was caused by alcohol. Talk about not thinking about tomorrow. Or maybe not wanting to think about tomorrow.

After a decade of political and economic chaos – where hundreds of millions of citizens of the former Soviet Union suffered – the former KGB agent Vladimir Putin was handed power in 1999 by a deeply alcoholic president Yeltsin. Some had high hopes for the new, little, balding czar.

But plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose - “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” It is a French saying, but it fits sadly well on Russia.

Because while the Ukrainians and the Georgians (and, of course, the Baltic countries) used their new-found freedom to develop, with Western support, their civil societies - which eventually would kick out the corrupt, Soviet leftovers in power - the Russians, in striking contrast, just looked on as Putin concentrated power in his own hands.

Like a czar.

That is not to argue that Russians are born hopeless and useless when it comes to democracy and standing up for their rights and lives. Obviously, the rulers/owners of Russia have never allowed a political environment conducive to democracy. But it is a fact that the Russians throughout the past decades have cut a sad, pathetic figure in that department compared to their Ukrainian “little brothers and sisters.”

As far as we know, Putin is no drinker, he was even a decent sportsman (thus all the shirtless pics).

But, nevertheless, his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 seems to have been based on pretty much the same less-than-deep considerations of the consequences, of what happens tomorrow, that we would expect from any vodka-soaked Bolshevik: ‘We will roll into Ukraine, they will be happy to see us, they understand that we are their big brothers, and big brothers should be in charge, we will take Kyiv in three days and the rest of the country will bow down.’

Aha. How did that work out for you, Vova?

But it is only now four years – and millions of dead, wounded, raped, tortured and kidnapped, and millions turned into refugees – later that Putin seems to be waking up to realities: Your stupid incursion into Donbas and Crimea eight years earlier – that had already cost 15,000 lives - only meant that Ukrainians knew what to expect from your regime.

In February 2022, the Ukrainians decided to stand up to you and your armies. I am not silly enough to predict how and when your invasion will end, Vova. (There are plenty of 'experts' in the West busy doing that.) But by now it is pretty evident that you will never be able to occupy all of Ukraine. That the Ukrainians will never bow to you, Vova. Never. Ever.

And this week you went on TV – cutting quite a different, reduced figure from the one who, on 24 February 2022, calmly and confidently informed the world that you had started your so-called “limited military operation” in Ukraine.

“Drones are increasingly being used to hit civil infrastructure…” a Russian president complained, reading from his handwritten notes. Well, Vova, have you heard the saying “what goes around, comes around” ?

“Limited military operation” my arse. Tell that to the millions of Russian citizens who have lost loved ones in Ukraine. “Limited.” More like old-fashioned canon fodder sent to die by a feudal overlord. We hear stories about Russian drunks, drug abusers, prisoners, invalids, wounded etc being scooped up and sent to the front with a day or two of “training”, others on crutches. Their “job” is to attract fire from the Ukrainian side, so the Russian artillery knows where to aim. In 2026.

Basically, Vova, you are now complaining like the ugly school yard bully crying to this mummy that the smaller kids are hitting back. There is no more pathetic sight.

“They can simply not calm down…” the Russian dictator moans about the very same people that he himself has tried to annihilate for the past four years now answering back. An then he lies blatantly about “a peaceful process” of negotiations.

Funnily enough - without further comparison but quite thought-provoking - your friend Donald Trump takes the same approach with his former European allies. When Denmark doesn’t want to give him Greenland, he threatens to “just take it”, possibly with military might – but then he backs down like a humiliated bully when the Danes’ European allies send a few handfuls of soldiers to protect Greenland. But he moans. And threatens. And moans again. As he did when the German Chancellor a few days ago - correctly - stated that Trump has been humiliated in Iran. Trump – as if he were playing Monopoly – now threatens to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Germany. Kindergarten stuff.

Anyway, back to the troubles of Trump’s mate, the Russian dictator:

But worse – for you, Vova – than your own pathetic moaning, is that the Russians seemingly, very, very, veeeery slowly – also are waking up to reality:

That there is a tomorrow. That your war in Ukraine has consequences - also for them.

For four years, we have seen poll after poll stating that 70-80 percent of Russians support your massacre in Ukraine. Practically not a public demonstration against the invasion of Ukraine. Even the Russian so-called opposition in exile have had a hard time condemning your invasion of Ukraine, most preferring to sit on the fence – because they felt that the average Russian apparently was quite okay with Russians massacring innocent Ukrainians.

We have seen thousands of bizarre intercepted conversations between Russian soldiers = rapists, thieves and murderers in Ukraine calling their mommy, boasting of all the killing and thieving and raping they are doing in Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol. And their mommies applauding them, and reminding them to bring home a fridge or a TV. Talk about a sick society.

But now when the Ukrainians have turned the tables – their drones are increasingly bombing Russian energy infrastructure, interfering with ‘normal life’ for Russians, just like the Russian army has been doing in Ukraine for years – we hear those very same ‘average’ Russians moan.

An example from this past week is Tuapse no the Black Sea coast. Every day this past week, Ukrainian drones have been bombing oil processing facilities. As a result Russia’s ability to process and export oil has been damaged - with loss of income for Putin’s war machine. But the Ukrainian attacks have also, of course, scared local inhabitants and made life in Tuapse difficult, as the city is in covered a thick, black smoke that can be seen more than 100 km away, and petroleum has spilled out in the streets, leading to several fires in local neighbourhoods.

Tuapse is normally a popular tourist destination on the Russian Black Sea coast. But thousands of posts on social media are now declaring the area and the coast unsafe, traces of petroleum has been seen along the beaches.

But – and this is the crux of the matter – people are starting to blame you, Vova. Because you are their czar, so your Russian subjects see this as your fault.

They have worked, drunk, shut up and supported you, for decades and, ultimately, sent their sons to die, for you. But in return, they expect electricity and heating.

Sometimes it is tough being a dictator, Vova.

Ukrainian drones have also hit many other oil facilities, just in this pas week in Perm an Orsk, 1,000 km deep into Russia. According to President Zelensky, such Ukrainian long-range strikes have caused Russia oil losses of $7 billion - but, as importantly, apparently brought it home to the Russians that they are at war. A war their czar started.

So now suddenly we see well-known Russian influencers and bloggers, but also simple citizens, openly questioning what the hell is going on. The very same bloggers and influencers who were all gong-ho until the war hit home.

In essence, the Russian dictator, bloggers, influencers, singers and mothers are now complaining that the Ukrainians are doing (a little of) what the Russians have been doing to them for four years.

As the woman in her car above naively says: “When explosions start happening in your own city, you realize just how awful it is. It’s terrifying.”

How stupid, short-sighted, you have been. “True Russians.”

The world has moved on, the Ukrainians of today are true, true Europeans, more and more integrated by the day. While you Russians only now seems to be realizing that you - and your children and your grandchildren - will be paying for your invasion and vile violence for a very, very long time to come. With no freedom, no travel or contacts with the West, and now - oh my - trouble with watching TV and heating your house.

The Ukrainians told you, showed you. You should have listened. You should have told your sons to stay at home. And told Vova to go to hell.

You will never again be the big brother. Instead, you will be the distant, sad, drunken, poor cousin – who had such potential and only has himself to blame for his misery. But – let’s be honest – you have always been an arrogant, aggressive a-hole, so nobody feels bad for you or wants to help you.