Vincent van Gogh Landscape Under a Stormy Sky 1889
Andrew Korybko:
Russia blamed Ukraine for Tuesday night’s attempted assassination of President Putin after two drones attacked the Kremlin but were disabled by the safety services before they harmed anyone. Kiev rejected the accusation and lied that the incident was a false flag per the innuendo pushed by Zelensky’s spokesman Nikiforov and senior advisor Podolyak. US Secretary of State Blinken echoed their claims by advising to “take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a really large shaker of salt.”
The Kremlin’s predictably declared right to retaliate “anywhere and anytime it deems needed” guaranteed that neither of those two would admit to any knowledge of the attack, however it wasn’t foreseen that they’d each collude in concocting a false flag conspiracy theory. Their credibility was already shattered after Russia didn’t go bankrupt and subsequently collapse over the past yr like they predicted, so it takes a variety of chutzpah to still lie about this attack regardless of their track record.
It’s unclear who their targeted audience even is anyhow since few are expected to fall for this fake news, though there’ll after all be some who play along since they’re reacting to those officials’ dog whistles and think they should do their part in laundering this disinformation narrative. Nikiforov said that “What happened in Moscow is clearly about escalating the mood on the eve of May 9. It’s a trick to be expected from our opponents”, but that really doesn’t make much sense if one thinks about it.
Russians are already very patriotic ahead of this practically sacred commemoration of their people’s victory over Nazi Germany so there’s no reason for the federal government to stage a false flag attack against President Putin for that purpose. As for Podolyak’s claim that “This may allow Russia to justify mass strikes on Ukrainian cities, civilians and infrastructure facilities”, that also doesn’t equate with objectively existing reality either.
Leaving aside his description of those strikes as “large-scale terrorist attack[s]” that he added at the top of his relevant statement, Moscow has already been striking military-relevant infrastructure for months without having to fake an attempted assassination of the country’s leader to justify this. Furthermore, these precision strikes have been applauded by the population, lots of whom imagine that they’re still too low-scale for his or her liking.
Truthfully speaking, a major share of the population will be described as members of the “patriotic opposition” within the sense that they’re displeased with the scope of the special operation and sincerely imagine that it must have been expanded way back, especially after the Crimean Bridge bombing. That’s not even to say the pullbacks from Kharkov and Kherson Regions, let alone Kiev’s drone strikes deep inside Russia late last yr, all of which they felt must have been far more fiercely responded to.
The way in which that they see it, Russia’s so-called “red lines” keep getting crossed without Kiev being taught the relevant lessons to discourage it from ever doing so again. Something worse seems to occur each time, however the cycle of bombastic rhetoric from the Kremlin, resultantly high hopes amongst Russian patriots, and their inevitable disappointment continues indefinitely and appears inconceivable to interrupt. It’s little wonder then that some are cynical after the newest incident and worry that there won’t be a befitting response.
These sensitive observations in regards to the true state of socio-political affairs in Russia nowadays are being shared not for the aim of saber-rattling, but simply to indicate that there’s literally no reason for the authorities to stage a false flag incident like Kiev and Blinken ridiculously implied. Many of us have wanted the scope of the special operation to expand for some time already and a few have even gone so far as lobbying for his or her country to enter a proper state of war in an effort to fully mobilize all facets of society.
These people had been warning for months that the authorities’ prioritization of political goals over military ones, which they imagine is answerable for Russia not overwhelmingly responding each time its red lines were crossed, would inevitably embolden Kiev to go even further. No patriot is pleased about what just happened, but quite a number of are convinced that it might need been avoided had the Kremlin reacted far more muscularly to its opponent’s prior spree of provocations up until this one.
Returning to the false flag conspiracy theory that Kiev and Blinken are propagating by innuendo, there’s no credible reason to imagine this blatant lie. Considering that few are expected to fall for this fake news, it will possibly due to this fact be interpreted as them scary the Kremlin by the use of mockery since no one of their right mind would ever imagine this. They each seem convinced that Russia won’t overwhelmingly or no less than reciprocally reply to this assassination attempt, but patriots hope that it’ll finally surprise them.