Even when your name is Vladimir Putin, you’ve just begun your fifth term as President of the Russian Federation, and you consider yourself invincible. Because somewhere — several somewheres, actually — along the way, you f**ked up. Big time.

Things were actually rolling along fairly smoothly for Vlad — or at least everything was pretty much under control — until a little over two years ago, when he decided to order a “special military operation” along the Russia-Ukraine border. When the world — and not least of all Ukraine — became understandably concerned, he swore that he had no designs on Ukraine . . . no intention whatsoever of violating that country’s borders.

February 24, 2022: Surprise! He lied. As Ukraine and the rest of the free world had suspected and feared all along, Putin’s routine military exercise . . . or “special military operation” . . . was a red herring. A cover. A 21st-Century Potёmkin Village hiding the truth behind the facade.

But Vlad had badly miscalculated. He truly seemed to believe that because there were some break-away regions in Eastern Ukraine that were sympathetic to Russia, the whole of the country would follow suit and welcome him as their new leader, swallowing whole his bullshit propaganda that the Ukrainian government was a fascist regime led by a closet Nazi. (That would be Volodymyr Zelensky . . . in reality, a non-closeted Jewish man who was and is President of a nation that had been brutalized by the real Nazis.)

Anyway, we all know what has transpired in the past two years: how Putin’s quick invasion has dragged on . . . and on . . . and on, costing his own country dearly in terms of lives lost, economic sanctions, military mismanagement, and personal loss of credibility. So . . . HUGE MISTAKE.

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Then it turned out that old Vlad is not the judge of character he believed himself to be. Aside from the incompetence of so many of his military officers, he has managed to keep most of his closest people in line — whether through blackmail, threats, or having them pushed out of windows. But he seriously misjudged his old friend Yevgeny Prigozhin. Remember him? He was the founder and head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries who could always be counted on to do Putin’s dirty work anywhere in the world. But one day Prigozhin realized how incompetent the Russian military leaders of the Ukraine war actually were, and his complaints to Putin were ignored. So he got some of his merry men together and staged a revolt: a march on the Kremlin, beginning all the way down south in Rostov. Well, that failed, Prigozhin’s fate was up in the air for some time, and he finally came crashing down — literally — in an exploding airplane, along with six of his colleagues and three crew members. Putin thought it was another problem solved, but the world knew it was no accident, and he was, once again, labeled a murderer. BIG MISTAKE.

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Next, our Vlad tackled the most outspoken dissidents, along with a number of foreigners for good measure, and simply locked them up on a variety of specious charges. But one of those dissidents was the beloved Alexei Navalny. And that problem just wouldn’t go away. Navalny continued to rally his followers from his Siberian prison cell, as did his team living in exile in various parts of Europe. And when Putin couldn’t shut them down, he did what he always does: saw to it that Alexei Navalny never reached his 48th birthday. GIGANTIC MISTAKE!

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And so we come to Vladimir Putin’s most recent headache: an actual terrorist attack on Moscow itself, in which more than 135 people were brutally slain, more than 100 others seriously injured, and a popular shopping and entertainment venue all but demolished. “Credit” for this monstrous act has been claimed by a radical Islamic group known as ISIS-K, allegedly in retaliation for Moscow’s friendly relations with countries in opposition to ISIS-K’s interests, or something of the sort. In other words, to twist a well-known axiom: The friend of my enemy is my enemy.

But Putin’s problem goes beyond the mere horror of the attack. To begin with, he was warned . . . and ignored the warning. The U.S. had received credible intelligence indicating an imminent attack on Moscow by Islamic radicals. And the American intelligence community takes very seriously its ethical duty to warn — not just its own citizens or those from friendly nations, but adversaries as well — of any such apparent dangers. And so it did in this case. But Putin chose to believe that the warning was “provocative,” and resembled “outright blackmail and an intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

And when the warning turned out to be real, and Putin found himself faced with the horrific results of his own stupidity, he did what he does best: blamed it on someone else . . . in this case, Ukraine.

Wait . . . WHAT?? WHO? Ukraine?!! Seriously?!!

No, no, no! Don’t laugh. He’s serious . . . or at least he managed to say it with a straight face. You see, according to Putin’s side of the story, the small group of terrorists somehow managed, first of all, to carry off this well-planned attack in full view of Moscow’s CCTV cameras; evaded the immediate emergency response teams; got out of Moscow; and made it across Russia to Bryansk, en route to the closest border with a non-NATO, non-Russia-friendly country, which happened to be Ukraine . . . where they also had managed to inveigle some misguided, friendly souls on the other side of the border to clear the way for them. A drive of about seven hours (to Bryansk) under ideal conditions, during which they were never apprehended . . . until — wonder of wonders! — they were on an obvious path to Putin’s favorite scapegoat: Ukraine.

And now we are supposed to believe that Ukraine is in league with reputedly the fourth most dangerous terrorist group in the world: ISIS-K. And of course, the United States — in fact, all of the “collective West” — is in cahoots with them.

You just can’t make this stuff up — at least, I can’t. But if your name is Vladimir Putin . . .

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Now, there are those who consider it possible that the Kremlin itself is behind the whole thing: that they sacrificed a couple of hundred of their own people; hired a handful of lunatics as scapegoats to do the dirty work, perhaps expecting them to die in the explosion and fire; and when they didn’t, “captured” them and roughed them up to make it all look as realistic as possible. That’s a pretty extreme conspiracy theory, and I don’t know . . . But here are some pictures (compliments of CNN News, March 24, 2024) of the alleged perpetrators after being taken into custody by Russian authorities:

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I have no words. None. For one of the few times in my life, I am officially speechless . . . without comment or conclusion . . . totally gobsmacked. And so I leave you for today, on your own, to draw whatever inferences you like. We shall all see what tomorrow brings . . . including, I hope, a rational thought or two of my own.

Until then, I am, as always,

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/26/24