Who would ever have thought that Vladimir Putin could be responsible for making me laugh so hard it actually snapped me out of yesterday’s malaise? Because normally, he is just not a funny fellow. Not intentionally, anyway.

But sometimes — just occasionally — when he’s dead serious, he can be freakin’ hilarious. Like the other day, when he said . . . oh, you just aren’t going to believe this one:

First, Reuters reported that “Russia is demanding that Ukraine hand over all people connected with terrorist acts committed in Russia, including the head of the country’s SBU Security Service, the foreign ministry said on Sunday . . .

“The SBU immediately dismissed the Russian demand as ‘pointless’ and said the Russian ministry had ‘forgotten’ that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

“A Russian Foreign Ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022 . . .

“The ministry said investigation of these incidents showed that ‘the traces of these crimes lead to Ukraine.’

“‘Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands . . . for the immediate arrest and extradition of all those connected to the terrorist acts in question,’ the statement said.

“‘The Russian side demands that the Kyiv regime immediately cease all support for terrorist activity, extradite guilty parties and compensate the victims for damages,’ the ministry statement said.

“‘Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under anti-terrorist conventions will result in it being held to account in international legal terms.’”

And so on. [Reuters, March 31, 2024.]

This was followed the next day by a report from Business Insider:

“Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded on Sunday evening that Ukraine arrest the head of its own security services and extradite him to Russia.

”The ministry issued a statement blaming Vasyl Malyuk, the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, for an explosion at a bridge in Crimea that Russia said killed five people in October 2022.

The statement called the explosion one of several ‘barbaric bomb attacks,’ mentioning them alongside the devastating Moscow concert hall attack in March 2022 [sic – should be 2024] that killed at least 140 people.

. . .

”Russia’s foreign ministry described the bridge attack as a terrorist act, and said it told Kyiv to ‘immediately arrest and extradite every person implicated.’” [Matthew Loh, Business Insider, April 1, 2024.]

[Pause for reaction from Kyiv]:

I happened to read the Business Insider article first, and my initial thought was that, it being April 1st, it was some sort of April Fool’s Day joke, which would have been funny enough on its own. But then I noted the Reuters article of March 31st, and when I realized this was no joke . . . well, you can imagine my reaction. It was pretty much as I had envisioned President Zelensky’s must have been.

*. *. *

True, the statement was officially issued by the Foreign Ministry. But you and I know perfectly well that no official statements come out of Moscow that haven’t been approved by . . . or even originated with . . . Putin himself. So let’s give credit where it’s due.

First, there’s the idea of Vladimir Putin — invader, war-monger, destroyer of any and all opponents, and himself an internationally wanted criminal — labelling anyone else as a “terrorist” . . . well, it simply stretches credulity beyond any conceivable limits.

Then there’s the issue of that Crimean Bridge: a bridge built by Putin to connect Russian land with a portion of Ukraine that he illegally has occupied since invading that region and forcibly annexing it in 2014. Land that, not incidentally, was legally and officially made part of Ukraine by edict of the Soviet government in 1954 — 70 years ago — when Nikita Khrushchev ordered it transferred from the Russian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) to the Ukrainian SSR. Land that, therefore, has never belonged to today’s Russian Federation, which has only been in existence as a sovereign nation since 1991.

And finally, when one considers the blasting of a single, illegally-existing bridge in contrast with the enormity of the ongoing, now-in-its-third-year onslaught and the blanket destruction of entire swaths of Ukrainian territory, including civilian infrastructure, not to mention the slaughter of tens of thousands of the civilians themselves . . . well, there simply is no way to compare the two. And consider that the importance of Crimea to Putin is its easy access to those areas of Ukraine that he has already invaded and devastated: Mariupol, Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mikolaiv . . . the southern quadrant of a sovereign nation that he, in his delusional state of mind, wants to “reclaim” in its entirety. (By the way, since Putin brought up the subject of compensation, I hope he’s set aside enough money to “compensate” all those victims of his own terrorist acts.)

*. *. *

Yes, in a sense the concept is comical . . . or it would be, if it were the plot of a Mel Brooks “History of the World” movie.

*. *. *

But it isn’t a movie. For the people of Ukraine, it is the very real story of their ruined lives, being lived day, after day, after endless day.

*. *. *

Perhaps the best way to react to Putin and his latest bit of grotesquery would be simply to treat his brainstorm as the joke that it is and laugh him out of the room . . . out of office . . . and out of existence. If only that were possible . . .

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/3/24