Can the Iron Curtain Ever Fully Close Again?
Can the Iron Curtain Ever Fully Close Again?
Putin's ill-fated effort to put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube
Cracks in the Iron Curtain
Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian television producer, made international news yesterday when she interrupted a live broadcast by storming onto a set holding a sign that said, alternating in English and Russian, “No war. Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here. Russians Against War.”
It was obviously a premeditated act — even aside from making a sign, Ovsyannikova recorded a video statement beforehand in which she said:
What is currently happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is a country-aggressor. All the responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of one person: Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian. They were never enemies. This necklace around my neck signifies that Russia should immediately stop this fratricidal war and our brotherly nations can make peace with each other. Unfortunately, for the last several years, I worked at Channel One, promoting Kremlin propaganda. And for that, I am very ashamed right now. I am ashamed that I allowed lies to be told from TV screens, that I allowed Russian people to be zombified. We stayed quiet when all of this was just getting started in 2014. We didn’t come out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We continued to quietly watch this inhumane regime, now the whole world has turned away from us. 10 generations of our descendants won’t be able to wash away the shame of this fratricidal war.
As you might expect, she is now missing after being detained by Russian authorities.
This touches on something that I’ve been wondering about since the start of the Russian invasion an the accompanying re-descent of the Iron Curtain: namely, how much do average Russian citizens know about what’s going on? Sure, we’ve seen reports of Ukrainians contacting family members in Russia to tell them about the invasion and atrocities committed by the Russian military, only to have those Russian family members deny it. [Which, side note, at first I wondered how people could so thoroughly deny the obvious reality in front of their face; but then I remembered that some of my own relatives believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that the COVID vaccine will kill them, and, well, I kinda get it.] But are there limits to Russian propaganda? Can a disinformation effort work in a modern society, at least for very long?
The Russian people woke up last week and suddenly their credit cards didn’t work, their currency was plummeting, social media was suddenly forbidden, and almost all international corporations were ceasing operations. Why do they think that is? Do they simply attribute it to a sudden onset of widespread Russophobia?
There are examples of societies with strictly-controlled information and outright propaganda, such as China and North Korea, but those countries never had much freedom in the first place. Is it possible to take a relatively free and integrated citizenry like Russia’s and completely sever its ties to the outside world? Putin is certainly making an attempt, but I don’t see how it can hold even in the intermediate term.
We’ve already seen more protests in Russia than at any other time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Does Putin really think he can thoroughly suppress that sentiment through brutality and propaganda? I mean, he clearly does think he can; but as we’ve seen with the increasingly desperate and shambling invasion, maybe Putin doesn’t have a firm grip on the reality on the ground. In the meantime, Godspeed to Marina Ovsyannikova and the brave Russians like her who are standing up for truth and justice at great personal risk to themselves and their families.
Silly First World Problems
In the three weeks since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I’ve basically been mainlining news about the conflict much to the detriment of my mental health. There’s the despair that comes from seeing such needless destruction, devastation, and death as a result of sheer murderous aggression; and there’s the vague yet omnipresent worry about the various ways the conflict could escalate. But a large part of what I’ve been feeling lately could best be described as acute memento mori — literally, “remember death;” but less morosely, “remember that life is finite.” It’s not a feeling of impending doom or anything like that, just a reminder that none of us live forever so it’s best not to waste it on frivolity.
What brought it into stark contrast for me was a news broadcast the other night that juxtaposed the plight of the Ukrainian people with the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that is allegedly circling the D.C. beltway in protest, apparently, of COVID vaccine mandates. [It should be noted that I drive approximately half the circumference of the D.C. beltway both to and from work every day, and I have yet to see any sign of this convoy, much less any difference in traffic.] I just found the disparity offensive to the point that I was basically yelling at the television: “There are guys my age in Ukraine loading their wife and kids onto trains so that they can flee their homeland and then going down to the local armory to get a gun to shoot at Russian invaders! Russian citizens are literally risking their lives to oppose their government in response to naked aggression! I cannot express how little I care that you don’t want to get what amounts to a flu shot, you self-important schmucks.”
But it’s not merely our petty political squabbles that seem silly by comparison, it’s pretty much everything. I almost feel guilty worrying about things like, I dunno, baseball free agency, my March Madness bracket, what I’m going to say in my dumb little newsletter, while the suffering of others is being broadcast nonstop. I mean, don’t misunderstand, I’m not doing anything about it — because I am, after all, also a self-important schmuck — but I’m at least feeling guilty about not doing anything. Which feels somewhat adjacent to actually doing something. It’s a start, anyway.
Strangely Plausible Optimism
Famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama raised some eyebrows last week when he published a piece predicting that Russia was headed for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Now, I’ve been on record as saying that I think Putin will seek to make up for his tactical and logistical failings with increased brutality and destruction; and what he failed to accomplish through military strategy he will seek to accomplish through sheer callous persistence. But as the days drag on with negligible movement by the Russian military, a question that seemed fanciful two weeks ago starts to become plausible: What if Russia just, y’know, loses? For all the handwringing about Putin’s willingness to flatten Ukraine rather than admit defeat, what if he simply can’t?
The failures of logistics have not improved and show no signs of improving; moreover they don’t have access to the funds required to make such improvements, and as each day passes they’re losing more of the manpower necessary to implement such improvements. Somewhat ironically, this could become an analog of the Battle of Stalingrad; in which fierce Russian resistance eventually so thoroughly decimated the larger German [Nazi] army that the Germans simply ran out of men to send into the meat grinder.
Granted, Stalingrad is also one of the most (if not the most) devastating battles in military history in terms of casualties; so we shouldn’t lose sight of the human cost associated with such a victory. And while it remains unlikely that the Ukrainians will mount a counter offensive to actually drive the Russians out of their country, it’s becoming increasingly plausible that they hold out long enough that the Russian military simply collapses under its own weight.
Occasional Trivia
Answer from last time:
Category: Nuclear Tests
Clue: Between 1951 and 1992, there were 928 nuclear explosive tests at the test site in this state.
Nevada
Today’s clue:
Category: Alliteration
Clue: Ships of yore masked their nationality with these; now a term for any covert act designed to make another entity appear guilty.
Dispatches from the Homefront
We’re now on Day 3 of adjusting to the time change with the kids. I didn’t appreciate the hassle of springing forward until I had kids, and I didn’t hate it with the passion of a thousand supernovas until I had two kids. The older kid, she’s not fooled at all by going to bed when the sun is still up. And the younger one is too young to even recognize time as a concept, so her routine is exactly the same, the clock just says it’s an hour later. Which means that the two kids are now on different schedules, an hour apart, all because Woodrow Wilson thought he knew better than the sun. Well nuts to that. I will support any candidate for office on the sole platform of never changing the clocks again. We have sprung forward, and we shall stay here for the rest of time.