While Vladimir Putin declares Russia’s so-called democracy to be the best in the world, and social media are blasted with festive promos of the beauty of his country and its supposedly happy people, the state of its true condition has been further revealed this week by way of warnings from the U.S. and other Western embassies to stay away from Russia . . . or if you’re already there, to get the hell out. Like . . . NOW!

First came a report from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that it had foiled a planned attack on a Moscow synagogue by “a cell of the militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State.” [Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, March 8, 2024.]

Just hours later, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow released a warning that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow. No further details were given, but the notice did specify that people should avoid concerts and crowds of all types: “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.” [Id.] The warning was repeated by the U.K., Canada, South Korea and Latvia, with advice to their citizens not to travel to Russia. It was not clear whether this warning referred to the same planned, and allegedly foiled, attack on a synagogue. In any event, there has not yet been a report of any sort of terrorist attack, in Moscow or elsewhere in the country.

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It’s no secret — although the Kremlin continues to cloak the situation in lies and artifice — that life in Russia today is receding, almost on a daily basis, into the darkness of the Stalinist era. Strangely and frighteningly, those who appear not to be opposed to this “back to the future” scenario are the very people — the older generation — who remember having lived through those days. But perhaps not so strangely, as they tend to recall those times as the days of stability and a form of security, when the misery of Soviet life was spread evenly among the masses.

The younger people today have had a different life experience — one of choices, opportunities, freedoms unimagined by their parents and grandparents. And they revel in it. They are the Russian citizens who brave the possibility of arrest and imprisonment in order to oppose Vladimir Putin’s despotic rule. But are they succeeding? It appears, not yet. Alexei Navalny has been killed, and there is no immediate successor to his charismatic, proselytizing style of leadership. Boris Nadezhdin, who had built a sizable base in his attempt to run against Putin in the upcoming presidential election, has — unsurprisingly — been stricken from the ballot on specious grounds. Others have been imprisoned, or have fled the country in fear for their lives.

It didn’t take a threat by an Islamist terror group to send Russia into a downward spiral of fear and paranoia; that was just the icing on the cake. It was, however, enough to keep the crowds away from Red Square and other popular gathering places for a few days, and to bring out the security forces in ever-larger numbers.

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I miss being able to visit “my” Russia of the 1990s. Would I go back today, given the opportunity? Hell, no! I am neither stupid nor suicidal. I am, however, profoundly saddened for the good people of Russia — for the friends I left behind there, and those I’ll never know — who have once again, as has so often happened throughout their history, had the proverbial rug pulled out from under their feet. Dark days, indeed.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/13/24