If you ask Evan Gershkovich, it’s both.

He and a number of others — many of them journalists, all of them guilty only of having spoken or written the truth — have spent months or years in Russian prisons for their alleged “crimes.” There are still eight Americans locked up in Putin’s penal colonies on similarly specious charges.

They know that when Putin says you are not welcome here, he means it.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the United States and a number of other countries have lodged increasingly onerous sanctions against the Russian government and scores of individuals in an effort to make it financially more difficult for Putin to carry on his war of attrition against Ukraine. And in retaliation, he has arrested as many Americans as he can get his hands on.

This week, Putin banned entry — as though Americans are beating on Russia’s doors begging to get in — to 92 more American citizens, including journalists from The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, as well as academics from Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh and the University of Virginia. Also included were U.S. Government officials from the Justice and Treasury Departments and Space Force. [Katharina Krebs and Lauren Kent, CNN, August 28, 2024.]

And my initial reaction was: “Yeah? So what?”

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the bans are “in response to the Russophobic course pursued by the Biden administration with the declared goal of ‘inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow.’” [Id.]

Specifically regarding the American journalists, the Ministry went on to say that “The ‘stop list’ also includes editorial staff and reporters of leading liberal-globalist publications involved in the production and dissemination of ‘fakes’ about Russia and the Russian armed forces, and the propaganda ‘cover’ for the ‘hybrid war’ unleashed by Washington.” The Ministry warned that the ban list will be expanded in the future. [Id.]

Well, I have news for the Foreign Ministry. They PNG’d me — cut off my visiting privileges — about 30 years ago. It made me sad; but my world didn’t come to an end. And neither will it finish off the careers or productive lives of any of the 92 people on their shit . . . excuse me . . . stop list.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal — which no longer has any reporters inside Russia in any event — agrees. In response to this latest ban, their spokesperson said that “The Putin regime is farcically consistent in its all-out assault on free press and truth. This laughable list of targets is no exception.” [Id.]

Laughable, indeed.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/31/24