They’ll put up with a lot . . . historically, they’ve always had to. They’ve been accustomed to doing without things that most of the world considers basic necessities; they’ve stood in line for food, shoes, and toilet paper; and for 70 years they swallowed communist propaganda about their “workers’ paradise” and the “evils” of the West, because there was no one to tell them differently.

But this is the 21st century — the information age — and when you start messing with their smart phones, you may have crossed a big red line.

It’s not just the interference with Telegram, WhatsApp, and the Internet, or the “suggested” switch to the new, state-controlled Max service provider, of course. It’s also about the detention of journalists and dissidents who dare to speak out against your policies. And it’s about the new school curriculum, and the promotion of the “Young Patriots,” that are more than a little reminiscent of the old Stalinist programs to capture and control the minds of the country’s most vulnerable citizens: its children.

Perhaps most of all, it’s about that little “special military operation,” now in its fifth year, that was supposed to have been a quick snatch-and-grab job back in 2022, but has resulted in the death or wounding of well over a million Russian troops. And now it’s about the increasingly successful counter-attacks by Ukraine on Russian territory itself, and the fear of not knowing when or where the next drone will strike.

In short, it’s about the lies, Vlad, and what happens when — inevitably — the truth reveals itself.

You see, what happens when the deceptions become transparent is that your reputation — the aura of omnipotence that you so carefully created around yourself — begins to tarnish. And that decay is starting to manifest itself in the polls, even in the Kremlin-friendly ones. Your approval ratings — while nowhere as close to the crapper as Donald Trump’s — are dropping, Vlad.

One such Russian pollster — FOM, whose main customer is your own Presidential Administration — has recently recorded the lowest level of public trust in you since September of 2022. And while this isn’t being construed as a sign of an imminent revolution, the trend has to be disturbing to a leader whose absolute authority has remained solid for more than a quarter of a century.

According to Konstantin Gaaze, a sociologist and former Russian government adviser now based in Tel Aviv:

“We don’t yet have enough data to link specific social processes in specific social groups to this downward trend. Who exactly is tired, disappointed, or angry? We have seen major interventions in everyday life — Internet blackouts and restrictions — but we are also seeing a more prolonged tendency. The War penetrating deeper and deeper into the heartland of European Russia. Drones, strikes on oil refineries, and so on. These things accumulate over time.” [Mike Eckel, RFE/RL, April 8, 2026.]

That has to be making you . . . well . . . a bit uncomfortable, at the very least. The long line of Russian Tsars, and after them the Soviet leaders, relied for their legitimacy on the adulation of the masses. It was what kept the people in line, allowing a single leader to maintain absolute control over a nation once covering 8.6 million — now 6.6 million — square miles.

And let’s be honest, Vlad. It’s more than just a logistical issue; it’s personal as well. Autocrats are, by definition, uncommonly egocentric — often even clinically narcissistic. So this has to hurt.

But if you’re expecting sympathy, or some words of consolation, I can’t help you there. Because it’s no better than you deserve — you and all of your fellow wannabe Caesars, your followers and your sycophants.

As for those falling poll numbers . . . well, the fact is, they make me happy. Not that you care what I think; you don’t even know I exist. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to rub it in.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/10/26