The Russians — of course, it would be the Russians! — have figured out how to do it. It’s easy, it’s effective, and it’s cheap. They simply follow the advice of Ebenezer Scrooge: “Decrease the surplus population.” *

* Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843.

Scrooge, to his credit (if you can call it that), at least meant only that they should let the poor die of more-or-less natural causes: starvation, exposure, or illness. The Putin method, however, is a bit more direct and timely: eliminate the undesirables. The Russian word for it is likvidatsiya — liquidation.

That is essentially what happened last week at a detention center in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, not far from the Ukraine border, when six inmates — accused members of ISIS charged with acts of terrorism — allegedly took two prison guards hostage. Russian special forces simply charged the prison, freed the prison guards without injury, and summarily disposed of the six offending inmates.

Problem solved.

But what really happened that day? This obviously was not a mock prison exercise intended to free up six beds for six hypothetical incoming inmates. And how could these six accused ISIS terrorists — armed only with a penknife, a rubber baton, and a fire axe — manage to “[knock] out the bars of a window in their cell and [enter] a guard room where they took at least two prison officers hostage,” according to local media? [Al Jazeera, June 16, 2024.]

An earlier report from Russian state news agency TASS, however — quoting unnamed sources — said that the six inmates were in the central courtyard of the detention center, not in their cell. Hmm . . .

All I can offer here is a barrage of more questions:

1) Where were the prisoners, and what were six alleged ISIS terrorists doing together in one location, apparently unguarded?

2) Where did they get the penknife, the rubber baton, and the fire axe?

3) Didn’t anyone hear them whacking away at the bars, presumably with the fire axe (if that is indeed what happened)? That had to be noisy.

4) How did they get from wherever they were to the guards’ location — however distant or close it may have been — without being detected?

5) They allegedly were demanding transportation in exchange for the lives of the hostage guards. How far did they really expect to get before being overtaken and captured or killed? Were they that stupid? Have they never heard of drones?

6) How did the Special Forces troops manage to “eliminate” the six prisoners in a hail of gunfire without at least wounding the guards?

7) Who were these six prisoners? Were they associated with the members of ISIS-K who stormed Moscow’s Crocus City Hall in March of this year? (And, by the way, where are those guys now, and what’s happening to them?)

8) Is it within the realm of possibility that the Russian authorities themselves planned and carried out the execution of the six prisoners, creating the legend of their attempted escape to legitimize their killing?

*. *. *

I can only answer Question No. 8 . . . with a resounding “Well, yeah . . . of course it’s possible!” How many murders — of single individuals and groups of sacrificial lambs — have been carried out by the Russian government in the name of necessity, or expediency, or collateral damage? Too many to count.

There is a saying widely attributed to Joseph Stalin, though not proven that it was he who first said it: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

It sounds like him, though.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/22/24

We humans love our dogs — sometimes more than we love our people. If we didn’t, why would we undertake a lifetime (the dogs’ lifetime) of feeding, and walking, and grooming, and visiting the vet, and scooping the poop, and playing “fetch” and “catch” and “tug,” and giving endless scratches and rubdowns, and paying for the shots and the food and the toys and the grooming and . . . Hey, tell me again why we do all that? Oh, right — because we love them, and because they give back unquestioning, unconditional, unending love and loyalty and devotion. And occasional misbehavior.

And barking. Endless, annoying, frustrating, nerve-shattering barking!

What do you suppose the vet would say if I were to bring our pooch, Dixie, in for a “debarkation” procedure? I’m not talking about getting off a ship or an airplane — that’s disembarking. I’m talking about having her bark removed. Obviously, he’d think I was insane, but after a day like yesterday, he wouldn’t be far off.

Fortunately for Dixie, she is really my son’s dog, not mine, so I don’t get to make those decisions. But being the one who’s at home with her most of the time, I have the longest exposure to her and her on-again-off-again displays of canine-ality (doggie personality). And she is definitely — in my unprofessional opinion — schizoid.

*. *. *

It all started yesterday, as it always does, with her protective instinct kicking in. If anyone or anything — deer, rabbit, neighbor, UPS truck — comes within 100 yards of the house, she goes bonkers. She’s a medium-sized mixed-breed: part Staffordshire, part pit bull, part lab, according to her DNA test results. So one would think she’d be in attack mode when she reacts that way. But let her at any of these creatures, human or otherwise, and rather than trying to tear them apart, she’ll just lick them to death. This girl is a lover, not a fighter. So, from my point of view, the barking serves no useful purpose other than to make Dixie happy.

Well, after a day of listening to her saying hello to every passing living being, things finally quieted down in the neighborhood for the evening. Since two of our family of four (humans) were away for the week, and my son was working in his home office, I was enjoying a quiet dinner on a tray in my den while watching one of my favorite movies. Until Dixie started her food vigil. (And yes, she had already had her dinner.)

At some point in the middle of my meal (and favorite movie), Dixie suddenly began barking her head off and running back and forth between me and the front door. So I carefully set my tray down on my chair — HUGE mistake! — and went to see what was going on. Nothing. No one at the door, no package delivery from Amazon, not even a neighbor passing by.

And when I turned to go back to my dinner, Dixie was way ahead of me. By the time I reached the den — about five seconds later — she was in there, scarfing down what was left of my formerly delicious casserole. When I yelled out her name, she froze momentarily, then turned and ran by me like a rabbit being chased by . . . well . . . an angry human.

So much for dinner.

I scolded her a bit more, of course; told her she was a naughty girl; and disposed of the remains of the casserole. (I know she’s healthy, but I also know where else that tongue has been!) Then I got some ice cream from the freezer for dessert, and locked her out of the den for the rest of the evening. And this was pretty much how she spent the next few hours.

If we had a doghouse, she would have been in it — except that it’s been too damned hot outside for that. No matter what our fur babies do, torture is out of the question. And we always forgive them. How can we not? I mean . . . look at that face.

*. *. *

And while all of this was going on, the cat was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle from her ringside seat. (She has a kitty condo, but — like most of her ilk — prefers the box from the latest package delivery.) What I wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking!

And today Dixie has been clinging to me like Saran Wrap, begging me with those huge, sad eyes to play with her, scratch her, slip her a snack . . . anything to reassure her that she is once again the most favored member of the household. So I did all of those things, one time each, and it still wasn’t enough. She has been staring at me all freakin’ day long! Do you have any idea how annoying that is?

She is so lucky I love her.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/21/24

Well, that didn’t take long, and sadly, the result is less than surprising. Staff Sergeant Gordon Black (U.S. Army) has been found guilty by a Russian court of theft, assault, and threatening to kill his former girlfriend in Vladivostok. He pled not guilty and claimed self-defense, admitting that he did hit her but only after she drunkenly attacked him and tried to prevent him from leaving the apartment they had been sharing. He has been sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, and has said he will appeal the verdict and sentence. Meanwhile, he’s not going anywhere.

As stated in my earlier post today, Russia has another American hostage in their prison system . . . another human life with which to barter.

Stalin would be so proud.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/20/24

“A soldier walks into a bar . . .”

It sounds like the opening line of an old joke. But in this case, unfortunately it isn’t.

We’ve all made bad choices throughout our lives, some simply foolish and embarrassing, others perhaps more costly. But how many of us have truly been left wishing we were dead, rather than having to pay the high price of one really, really, really stupid mistake?

In the case of Staff Sergeant Gordon Black, that may be precisely what he has been thinking lately. Because this is the young American soldier — on his way to his home base in Texas but with two weeks’ leave after being stationed on assignment with the U.S. Army in South Korea — who decided it might be smart to detour first, without authorization, to visit his Russian girlfriend . . . in her home town of Vladivostok. Which, in case you weren’t aware, is in Russia.

It was a movie-script meeting: young, naive American soldier walks into a bar where he meets a beautiful Russian woman who, for some reason, has been living in South Korea for five years and is currently working in this bar. They strike up an acquaintance and soon begin a romance that lasts until she returns to her native Russia. They continue communicating, and not long afterward he tells her that his tour of duty is ending and he will be returning to the U.S. for reassignment. But he has those two weeks of leave time, and she invites him to visit her in Vladivostok.

And here is where his brain becomes overwhelmed by his libido, and he decides it would be just peachy if he were to travel home to the U.S. by way of Russia — traveling first through China — without bothering to seek the requisite authorization from the Army. Which is what he does, in May of this year.

And so he steps off of the plane in Vladivostok, spends some time with the lovely Aleksandra, only to be confronted in his hotel by the local police and detained on charges of “criminal misconduct” — specifically, theft, assault, and threat to kill. And he never does make it back home, because it seems his “girlfriend” has accused him of all of the above.

Now comes the best part. By the time his trial is scheduled in June, he has allegedly admitted to the theft, though not to the charges of assault or threat to kill.

He confessed??!!! Are you serious??!!!

Apparently so . . . and in this case, his stupidity has kicked in without any encouragement from his libido — but quite likely with a good bit of “encouragement” from his captors. He confessed to having taken 10,000 Russian rubles, but with the intention of returning it before leaving Vladivostok. (Don’t get too excited about the amount — that’s just a little over $100 U.S. money.) Did they promise to go easy on him if he admitted to the least of the three charges? Quite possibly. But please don’t tell me he actually believed them!

His trial has started over there in the Primorsky territory in the far eastern region of Russia bordering China and North Korea, while his family, the U.S. Defense Department, and the rest of the world await the outcome.

*. *. *

So now, Russia has another American hostage, ripe for questioning immediately and possibly for trading later. Each and every one of the political hostages, as far as we know, has continued to vehemently deny the charges against them. But not Staff Sergeant Black. Is he frightened? Well, who wouldn’t be? Perhaps the difference is that, unlike the others, he is actually guilty of something . . . at the very least, of having allowed himself to be trapped into this position in the first place. Did the Army not teach these young soldiers about “honey traps” before sending them overseas? And if so, wasn’t he paying attention? How many other “boyfriends” has his beloved Aleksandra enticed — or tried to entice — from the U.S. Army base while working at that bar? It’s the oldest trick in the world.

*. *. *

I have the utmost sympathy for Sergeant Black, as I do for anyone being held in a Russian prison on trumped-up charges. But in this case, he has to realize that he is responsible for his own poor decisions.

So is there a moral to this story? Well, of course there is! (I didn’t go through all of this just to leave you hanging.) The moral to Sergeant Black’s tragic tale has been heard before, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s beloved Mama:

“Stupid is as stupid does.” *

Unfortunately, what Staff Sergeant Gordon Black did was incredibly stupid.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/20/24

* Forrest Gump, Paramount Pictures, 1994.

Oh, what the hell . . . I have no patience with political correctness, so let’s just call it what it is. I’m short. I’ve always been short, and the older I get, the shorter I get. That’s not such a bad thing when you start out life as Shaquille O’Neal; but when your maximum adult height was 5’2 and 1/2” (that 1/2 inch was very important to me), shrinking is not something you look forward to. You know it’s inevitable, but so is death, and no one is going to be able to make you feel good about either one.

You’re probably thinking that there are so many worse burdens that one could have to carry through life than just being vertically challenged, and you’re right. I have all of my limbs, all of my senses (except perhaps the one known as “common”), and no wart on the tip of my nose or Cyclops eye in the middle of my forehead. My brain is in reasonable working order, and I’ve already lived many years longer than predicted by the actuarial tables at the time of my birth. And yes, of course I’m grateful for all of those things. But still . . .

*. *. *

When you’re five years old and entering first grade (there was no kindergarten in my town in those days so everyone started first grade at five), it’s hard to suddenly find that you’re an object of special attention. My curse was twofold: first, my older sister had taught me to read, write, and do basic arithmetic from the age of three, so I was considered bright, which always makes you something of a pariah among your classmates; and second, I was short, which meant I always had to sit in the front row so I could see the blackboard and the teacher . . . and she could see me. And being of a somewhat mischievous nature, that made it really challenging to carry out my devilish little plots and schemes . . . although I did get better at it as I got older.

“What, is that all?” — I hear you ask. Uh-uh. Not by a long shot. Because, having been given a jump-start on the “three Rs,” I was deemed as wasting my time with all the “normal” kids in first grade, and they skipped me in the middle of the school year to second grade, because that’s what they did in those days. I was six by the end of the school year, when I was promoted to third grade with all the eight- and nine-year-olds.

Do you know how much a child grows in two years? To a short kid like me, it’s a lot. And here were all these big kids, and here was shrimpy me, sitting in the front row as usual . . . and having to stand on a freakin’ step stool to reach the freakin’ blackboard! But I hung in there. And since I was still just 16 when I graduated from high school, I never did catch up in height to most of my classmates — not that I was ever going to anyway.

On the up-side, however, I did get to date the really cute short guys. You know, all the ones with Napoleon complexes . . .

Crap!!!

*. *. *

Then at last it was off into the real world, where I wore the highest heels my feet and back would tolerate, and still wound up looking most people directly in . . . the neck. I lost count of the strangers whose eyes I nearly poked out with my umbrella as I tried to navigate among the crowds on rainy days. And I know people got sick to death of hearing me ask for help hanging my coat on the hook that was always just that much too high, or to retrieve the file from the top file cabinet drawer.

Did I say it could always be worse? Yes, I did . . . and I know whereof I speak. Because having all five lumbar vertebrae fused later in life just added to the normal age-related shrinking thing. I have, by actual measure, now shrunk 4-1/2 inches (there’s that all-important half-inch again), to an impressive 4’10” in . . . what? I hesitate to call it “height” . . . let’s say, “vertical presence.”

And in just one minute of Google research, I learned today that I am officially — according to the advocacy group Little People of America — qualified as a Little Person. Just barely, as 4’10’ is their maximum acceptable height (average is 4 feet) . . . but still qualified, even though I wasn’t born with the condition known as dwarfism. Finally, after all these years of not fitting in, I have found my place among those wonderful, feisty, hard-working, smart, talented, lovable short folks.

So, screw all you tall people. I’m off to see the Wizard . . .

Come on, Toto.

See ya . . .

Brendochka
6/19/24

There I was, happily embarked on a more light-hearted note this week, when I decided to read Monday’s news reports. And there he was — my beloved Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman — shooting off his mouth once more on behalf of his vozhd, Vladimir Putin. And when Dmitry speaks, I’ve found that it’s useful to pay attention. So let’s check out the latest from my hero . . . my source of all wisdom . . . my No. 1 favorite bullshit artist: give it up for Dmitry Sergeevich Peskov. (Round of applause, please.)

*. *. *

So . . . WOW!

According to Reuters (June 17, 2024), “The Kremlin said on Monday [that] a remark by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the military alliance was holding talks on deploying more nuclear weapons was an ‘escalation of tension.’

“Stoltenberg told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that NATO members were consulting about deploying more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China.”

So this is an “escalation of tension,” eh? Well, it might have been . . . if it weren’t in reality a natural response to all those not-so-subtle hints at the use of nuclear weapons previously tossed around by Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev (Russia’s latest and loudest cold-war warrior), and by Vladimir Putin himself. Those weren’t “escalations of tension”?

And when Medvedev again proclaims that Russia “was not bluffing when it spoke of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and warned [that] Moscow’s conflict with the West could escalate into all-out war . . . [that] Moscow’s conflict with the West was developing according to the worst case scenario and that ‘nobody today can rule out the conflict’s transition to its final stage’” [Reuters, May 31, 2024] — that’s not an escalation of tensions?

If it isn’t, I’d like to know what the hell is!

For example:

When Russia massed its troops on the Ukrainian border and staged an all-out invasion of that sovereign nation on February 24, 2022 — that wasn’t an escalation of tensions?

But when Ukraine mobilized to defend itself, and sought help from its Western allies — that was aggression?

And when Ukraine refuses to simply give away pieces of itself because the bully on the playground demands it — that’s an escalation of tensions?

When NATO members, including those countries directly abutting Ukraine, dig down deep to help their democratic ally by providing non-nuclear weapons to prevent the spread of Russia’s territorial ambitions — that’s an escalation of tensions?

In the sick, twisted, Byzantine mindset of Vladimir Putin and his minions, that’s what we — the nations of the free world — are expected to believe. But we don’t . . . and we never will. Because we know better.

Take that message back to your boss, Dmitry Sergeevich.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/18/24

As reported just two days ago, there is an update on the status of HOSTAGE Evan Gershkovich . . . and it isn’t good. After being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison for 441 days, without evidentiary support, he has finally been told that he will be returned to Yekaterinburg, where he was initially arrested, for trial on the charge of espionage.

Quite obviously, “due process of law” is defined differently in Russia than in the United States, or in the rest of the free world — 441 days without being formally charged!

For more than a year, Gershkovich has been the subject of intense negotiations — initiated by the United States — for a prisoner swap. He came close earlier this year, when there was talk of a “package deal” — Gershkovich, fellow American HOSTAGE Paul Whelan, and possibly Russian dissident Alexei Navalny — in exchange for Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, convicted and imprisoned in Germany for the flagrant daytime assassination of a Chechen warlord. But that negotiation collapsed when Navalny suddenly and mysteriously died in the Siberian penal colony where he was serving combined 30-year sentences on bogus charges of “extremism.”

Why the sudden movement by the Russian legal system (such as it is) on Gershkovich’s case? In the labyrinthine mind of Vladimir Putin, there could be any number of reasons. The one that leaps immediately to my mind is an ultimatum: there is something he wants, and wants badly enough to use an innocent young man’s life as collateral. And — like a child on the playground — if he doesn’t get his own way, he’ll simply take his toys and go home.

But the stakes here are not a game. And Putin knows it. So, as always, we wait for him to show his hand.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/16/24

*. *. *

And please — once again — let us not forget the other HOSTAGES, still wasting away in various Russian prisons and penal colonies for the simple act of disagreeing with Vladimir Putin’s increasingly onerous edicts. It is for them that this regular Sunday posting is written.

To those known . . .

Vladimir Kara-Murza – HOSTAGE
Evan Gershkovich – HOSTAGE
Paul Whelan – HOSTAGE
Ilya Yashin – HOSTAGE
Robert Woodland Romanov – HOSTAGE
Boris Akunin – HOSTAGE
Marc Hilliard Fogel – HOSTAGE
Asya Kazantseva – HOSTAGE
Ilya Barabanov – HOSTAGE
Alsu Kurmasheva – HOSTAGE
Aleksandr Skobov – HOSTAGE
Antonina Favorskaya – HOSTAGE
Oleg Orlov – HOSTAGE
Boris Kagarlitsky – HOSTAGE
Oleg Navalny – HOSTAGE
Ksenia Karelina – HOSTAGE
Ksenia Fadeyeva – HOSTAGE
Lilia Chanysheva – HOSTAGE
Vadim Ostanin – HOSTGE
Sergei Udaltsov – HOSTAGE
Konstantin Gabov – HOSTAGE
Danuta Perednya – HOSTAGE
Olesya Krivtsova – HOSTAGE
Staff Sgt. Gordon Black – HOSTAGE

. . . and those hundreds of others whose names remain unknown to me . . . you are not forgotten, nor have you been abandoned. The fight continues on your behalf.

Brendochka
6/16/24

18-oz. box of Shredded Wheat – $5.31
52 ozs. (not even half a gallon) of milk – $5.65
15 ozs. (just shy of a pound) of butter – $5.41
1 baking potato – $0.84
1 can Progresso Minestrone – $3.43
1 Stouffer’s frozen entree (single serving) – $4.31
1 3.6-oz. cup of Haagen Dazs ice cream (my guilty pleasure) – $1.93

I’m over $25 already, and I only have some odds and ends and a dessert. Okay, and a couple of extra bowls of cereal. But no meat, no veggies, no fruit yet — not even a loaf of bread ($4.97). So what is wrong with this picture?

Nothing, if you’re wealthy. But how many of us are? Come on . . . raise your hand if you’re filthy stinkin’ rich. Nobody? I thought not. Because those one-percenters aren’t reading my blog or surfing on Facebook. They’re snacking on caviar and champagne aboard their yachts on the Mediterranean, when they’re not working 24/7 to earn their next hundred million.

*. *. *

So what’s my point? Um . . .

Wait a minute . . . I know I had a point here somewhere. It was . . . Oh, right! It wasn’t to moan and groan about inflation, or Medicare, or Elon Musk’s most recent $48,000,000,000 (that’s $48 Billion) compensation package from Tesla — although I could find a few choice things to say about that last one.

No, it’s just that the cost of this week’s groceries brought me back a few years . . . actually, a lot of years . . . to when I was 13, and my grandmother came to stay with us while my mother was in the hospital for ten days.

First, Mother wasn’t in danger of dying. In fact, she wasn’t even sick. She was having cataract surgery on one eye, which in those days was a huge deal: both eyes patched so she couldn’t watch TV, read, or see anything at all. And her head was sandbagged so she couldn’t move it. It was horrible. The last thing she needed was to worry about my sister and me, so our Bubbe came down from Rhode Island to D.C. to make sure we didn’t destroy the apartment, or run off with a couple of losers from the neighborhood. And to cook for us, which was the best part. I know I’ve mentioned her cooking before, more than once.

So while Mom lay immobilized in the hospital, we ate like princesses. And while I was at school and my sister at work during the day, our already clean apartment got cleaned again to within an inch of its life, while the neighbors gathered in the hallway to try to determine where the incredible side-by-side odors of cleaning products and stuffed cabbages were coming from.

On her second or third day there, Bubbe found her way, by herself, to the grocery store for provisions, for which our mother had given her money before leaving for the hospital. And when I got home from school that day, she was practically in tears.

“Bubbe, what on earth is the matter?”

“Oh, your mother’s going to be so mad at me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, tell me what you’ve done. It can’t be that bad.”

I figured at the very least she had broken one of my mother’s treasured Hummel figurines.

Taking a deep breath — more of a sob — she finally blurted out: “Well, I went to the store. You know, the one up the street?”

“By yourself? You should have waited for me to go with you!”

“What am I . . . a little girl you should have to walk with me? I can go to a store by myself. Anyway, I bought a chicken for roasting, and a brisket, and some potatoes and carrots and onions, and a few other things . . . “

“Yeah, yeah, fine. But what’s the problem?”

More inhaling/sobbing. Then, finally: “She’s going to kill me. I didn’t know everything was so expensive here. I spent five dollars!”

Oh! My! God! She spent five dollars!

And I did what any loving, respectful granddaughter would have done to make her grandmother feel better: I laughed. Because even in those days (somewhere in the 1950s), five dollars — the cost of a loaf of bread today — was not a lot for groceries.

After Bubbe stopped yelling at me for being so rude and unfeeling, I was able to calm her down by explaining to her what we usually spent on a week’s groceries, and everyone felt better. And we three ate like royalty for several days on that same five dollars.

To keep things in perspective, however, let me explain that my mother and my sister each had office jobs that paid — before taxes — $50 a week. Our rent, as I recall, was something like $75 a month for an ordinary, un-air-conditioned, two-bedroom apartment. And my mother managed to put aside the money to pay for my weekly piano lessons.

It was a very different world then. We didn’t have a car, so we walked or rode the bus everywhere. We didn’t have desktops, laptops, iPads or iPhones, so we read a lot more books and played board games. And we talked to each other . . . face-to-face . . . about everything.

And we didn’t know about cholesterol, or sodium, or ketoacidosis, so when Bubbe told us to “clean our plates because there were children starving in Europe,” we happily complied. I never pointed out to her that my eating every bite of my dinner wasn’t going to help those poor starving children; it would have broken her heart. And I couldn’t do that; I loved her too much.

The ten days passed quickly — though not so much for our poor, sandbagged mother. She did survive it, of course, and by the time she had the cataract removed from the other eye years later, it had become an outpatient procedure and my sister and I were old enough not to need a visit from Bubbe. In any event, she had passed away by then, taking with her the secret of how to feed three people for a full week on five dollars.

*. *. *

So would I give up my air-conditioning, my car, my electronics, and all of today’s other sources of comfort and instant gratification to go back to those simpler days? I know my answer to that question. What’s yours?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/15/24

In my day, it might have been two Roy Rogers for one Gene Autry. But for generations, kids have been swapping trading cards, or Hot Wheels, or a couple of Twinkies for a bag of chips.

In today’s adult world, the hot commodity is people.

This week’s news, even for Putin’s Russia, is so far beyond the pale as to be nearly inconceivable. But they have gone and done it: they have — after detaining him without formal charges for more than a year in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison — formally charged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage, accusing him of spying for the CIA. If convicted, he could receive a sentence of up to twenty years in prison. (See my blog post of March 27, 2024, if you’re not familiar with his case.)

Russian prosecutors said the FSB (Federal Security Service) had “established and documented” that Gershkovich was acting on CIA instructions in “collect[ing] secret information” about a Russian tank factory. According to the charges, he had “carried out the illegal actions using painstaking conspiratorial methods.” [Anna Chernova, Christian Edwards and Jennifer Hansler, CNN, June 13, 2024.]

Is this happening now because, during the past 14 months, their investigators have found some new, plausible evidence to support these charges? Nope.

Is it because Gershkovich has actually confessed to some activity that could reasonably be construed as spying? Definitely not.

Or is it because the Russian standard for the acceptable parameters of a journalist’s job is so detached from reality and from worldwide accepted norms as to be unrecognizable? No, it isn’t even that — not in this case.

To put it as simply as possible, Evan Gershkovich, hostage, has now become Vladimir Putin’s No. 1 pawn in a deadly game of political chess. They want a swap. We are amenable to a swap, and in fact have been trying to negotiate a resolution for over a year. But what they want is not a fair trade . . . nor is it a simple one. What they apparently desire in exchange for this innocent journalist is a vicious, admitted killer-for-hire: Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel in Russia’s FSB, successor to the KGB, currently serving a life sentence in Germany following his conviction for assassination of a former Chechen fighter in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019.

To Russia, however, this butcher is a hero. In Putin’s own words, delivered in his now notorious interview with the equally notorious right-wing nut job Tucker Carlson: “Listen, I’ll tell you: sitting in one country, a country that is an ally of the United States, is a man who, for patriotic reasons, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals.”

Could you ask for a clearer example of a double standard? He has already succeeded in getting back infamous arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for basketball star Brittney Griner, despite refusing to include American Paul Whelan (and possibly Russian dissident Alexei Navalny) in that negotiation. (Those talks fell through when Navalny suddenly and mysteriously died in the Siberian prison camp in which he was serving a 30-year combined sentence.) And now Putin wants another of his ignominious criminals released.

But there is a major problem in this case, and that is that Krasikov is not in America’s jurisdiction; he is in prison in Germany. And yes, Germany is our ally, and a member of NATO. But it is not our puppet, or anyone else’s. We cannot order Chancellor Scholz to install a traffic light on Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse, much less release a convicted murderer in a deal with Russia. It just doesn’t work that way.

And even if we were able to convince Chancellor Scholz that it would be in everyone’s best interests to do so, wouldn’t he be well within his rights to expect a little something in return? Perhaps there’s a German citizen being wrongfully detained in Russia on some spurious charge? Or maybe there is nothing — not a single thing — that Germany wants from Russia at this point in time. Whatever the circumstances, this is a three-way negotiation, not simply a tit-for-tat between Russia and the United States.

It’s complicated.

And in the meantime, Evan Gershkovich sits in Lefortovo Prison, awaiting transfer to an equally dismal facility in Yekaterinburg where he was originally arrested, and where he will look forward to further incarceration and ultimately to a sham trial and an inevitable guilty verdict. And more and more hostages keep piling up in Russia’s archipelago of prisons and penal colonies, while the best we and our allies can do is negotiate within the limits of international law.

Sometimes, life simply isn’t fair.

*. *. *

Postscript: And if you happen to be a fan of irony, or farce imitating reality, or simply a good laugh, I’ve got one for you. Earlier this week, Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner (and if that isn’t an oxymoron, I’ve never heard one), appealed to senior United Nations and other officials “to take action to secure the release of Russian nationals still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.” [Reuters, June 11, 2024.]

Writing on the Telegram messaging app, she said she had met in Moscow with relatives of the hostages still being held (of whom there were originally eight, three having already been released): “In one conversation, one of the mothers told me details of the situation of those being held.” Following that meeting, she appealed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross “for the rapid return home of our compatriots.” [Reuters, id.]

Seriously??!!!

Well, perhaps she’d like to discuss a swap with the head of Hamas in Gaza for some of the hostages being held by her own government; I’m sure there must be an Islamist or two somewhere in Russia. Then she and Putin would find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of someone else’s middle finger.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/14/24