What if Putin were to resign tomorrow? What if he has been killed by his closest and most trusted advisers and that's the real reason why his eagerly non-awaited speech has been delayed? Wouldn't it be wonderful? But what if someone even worse were to come to power in Kremlin?
Gorbachev is a "hero in Israel" and (I kid you not) even has "a potato named after him". Not only did he single-handedly destroyed the "evil empire", he gave 3 million Jews freedom. That would be way more than Moses ever achieved, by the way.
I am reading variations of this story, and not just in relation to Jews. A great story it is too. Just not the way I remember good ol' commie, for Gorby has achieved the "good commie" status on August 30th.
As "Simply Jews" we are going to leave out the minor matter of Gorbachev's propensity to order mass murder of unarmed civilians in places like Lithuania and Georgia, him giving more power to KGB and attempt to backtrack on reforms in the latter years of his rule or his subsequent support for Putin's occupation of parts of Ukraine in 2014. Let's chat about Gobry's antisemitism.
The year was 1985. Sakharov wrote to the General Secretary of the Communist Party to let out his sick wife, Yelena Bonner so she can receive medical help in Italy. To make a decision Gorbachev called up Politburo (like you do).
Several senior commies wanted to grant Sakharov request - not because it's a decent thing to do but because it would "look good". Then KGBist Chebrikov made a peculiar claim...
In the 80s many Soviets, brought up on the best traditions of the Protocols and Stalinist paranoia, believed that controlling Jews played an outsized role in world affairs. In that respect they were not all that different from the western "anti-Zionists" who filled in the social media some 40 years later. So, the popular theory was that Sakharov's half-Jewish wife terrorized the world famous human rights activist into being a decent person and opposing Soviet dictatorship. So, Chebrikov made the claim that Sakharov was under the influence of Yelena Bonner. Gorbachev's reply?
That's Zionism for you
I rest my case.
Russian military have just arrested Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol. For “terrorism offences”, aka refusing to be a collaborator.
Reading comments on Russian social media I am seeing pejorative/racist “hohol” used for Ukrainians quite often. Well, someone named “Ivan Fedorov” is not “hohol”. You cannot possibly have a more Russian name than Ivan Fedorov. This is the mayor of the town Russians are supposedly liberating from Ukrainian nationalists.
All those people in bombed out maternity wards, universities, kindergartens are, for the most part, Russian speakers and ethnic Russians. Not sure if ironic is quite the right word here but Russians are murdering Russians to save them from Ukrainians.
Hat off to Mr Fedorov.
