Variously known as “The Art of Deflection,” “The Blame Game,” or simply “Lying Through Your Teeth,” Plan B is a time-honored device used by tyrants everywhere, from the six-year-old bully on the playground declaring “he hit me first,” to the politician seeking to avoid a scandal, to the barbaric head of state in need of an excuse to start — or prolong — a war.

And no one does it better than Vladimir Putin. Using his contorted view of Russian/Ukrainian history as an excuse, he sought to satisfy his lust for renewal of the Russian Empire by invading and occupying the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

In 2022, his bizarre claim that the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine were begging to be rescued from oppression by an imaginary “nazi” leadership was the rationale for his full-force attack on the eastern Donbas region, and subsequently the entirety of Ukraine . . . an all-out war of attrition, labeled by him a “special military operation,” that continues to this day.

For four years, as the free world’s leaders have come to Ukraine’s defense while simultaneously seeking to negotiate a solution to the conflict, Putin has stalled, promised, reneged, and deflected time and time again, repeatedly attempting to shift the blame for the carnage to NATO, the EU, and to Ukraine itself.

And as 2025 drew to a close, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered a revised, 20-point peace plan for consideration by the Russian side, Putin came up with yet another ingenious charge to levy against Zelensky: he claimed that a Ukrainian “strike” on his residence at Valdai in the Novgorod Oblast of Russia — which cannot be verified as having happened at all — was an assassination attempt against him personally.

But the Kremlin doesn’t need proof; just putting it out there was enough for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who quickly issued a statement reiterating their original immovable, one-sided demands for a cessation of hostilities. And he even had a little help from Donald Trump, who said he had been told about the “attack” by Putin during their last telephone conversation, which had made him very “angry” . . . implying that if Putin said it happened, it must be true.

Ukraine — always more than happy to take credit for any real assaults on Russian forces or territory — categorically denies this claim of an attack on Valdai. And George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said in an exclusive interview:

“There’s no evidence that Ukraine conducted any kind of strike targeting Putin’s residence in Valdai. It’s fairly telling [that] the Kremlin spokesman even rejected the notion that Moscow should provide evidence. Kremlin officials are using the alleged Ukrainian strike in Novgorod Oblast to justify Russia’s continued insistence that both Ukraine and the West capitulate to Russia’s original demands from 2021 and 2022.” [Alex Raufoglu, Kyiv Post, January 1, 2026.] [Bold emphasis is mine.]

Deflect . . . blame . . . lie. They all do it: the autocrats, the plutocrats, the kleptocrats. And Vladimir Putin does it better than most. But, like the mythical boy who cried wolf, no one believes him any longer — no one, that is, with a functioning brain.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
1/3/25