Not a day goes by in Russia at the moment when someone doesn’t swing the nuclear mace. For propaganda, nuclear war and human annihilation are no longer taboo. A deputy in Kostrama wanted to appeal to Putin against this rhetoric – and was only met with an embarrassed silence.
With each passing day that the war in Ukraine continues, the propaganda on Russian state television is growing in scale and absurdity. If nuclear war has been an absolute taboo for the past seven decades, Kremlin propagandists are now elevating it not just to the realm of possibility. No, they’re just screaming for it. Just recently, Putin’s chief propagandist, Dmitry Kiselyov, demonstrated how Britain could be sunk under a “radioactive tsunami wave.” (Read more about it here).
There are no longer any borders for propaganda. Criticism of the dangerous course rarely slips through – especially from official sources. All the more astonishing was a request from a deputy of the regional Duma from Kostrama. At a session of the region’s parliament, Vladimir Mikhailov proposed that an appeal be made to Vladimir Putin that Russia should make a nuclear first strike inadmissible.
“Recently, state officials, politicians, journalists and experts have been discussing the scenario of a Russian nuclear first strike in the most important Russian mass media,” Mikhailov explained his motive for the application. “However, the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in a first strike contradicts Russia’s military doctrine, according to which nuclear weapons may only be used if the existence of our state is threatened. There is currently no such danger for Russia,” he said.
“The use of nuclear weapons by Russia will trigger a global nuclear war, at the end of which all mankind will be annihilated. I think it is absolutely unacceptable for Russia to be the first to launch a nuclear strike.”
“I am leaving this meeting in protest”
Silence and bowed heads – the other MPs react to these clear words with absolute apathy. The Chairman of the Regional Duma will immediately put the motion to a vote. The result is as devastating as it is telling: 26 MEPs refuse to even discuss the motion, three are included and only two vote in favour.
“Dear colleagues, you obviously do not fully understand what is happening today,” Mikhailov commented on this result. “Russia has never been a threat to the world and humanity. We grew up with the ideas of peace, goodness, justice. Given that they don’t even want to discuss the appellation, let alone support it, I’m leaving in protest this session.”
And the 57-year-old was even clearer: “I consider what you are doing here to support a possible nuclear first strike. You actually voted for a nuclear war by refusing to even think about my proposal.”
Symbol for the state of Russia
After these words, Mikhailov got up and packed his things. Most of his colleagues continued to stare at the tables in front of them or leaf through their papers, while a perplexed and stuttering Duma chairman could think of nothing better than to recommend Mikhailov to see a doctor.
The episode from the Kostrama Duma not only presents the regional parliament, but also demonstrates the conditions in which Russia is frozen. Fear of the Kremlin is so great that not even the threat of nuclear war can rouse the political elite. The fear of losing the accumulated sinecure is so great that looking up from the table seems like a risk to most. In this Russia, the man who doesn’t want to see the world buried under nuclear ash is sent to the doctor.
While on TV the propagandists quote Putin with grinning faces when the end of humanity is being debated. “We go to paradise as martyrs, and they just die,” the man from the Kremlin once said about the outcome of his nuclear war.
Source: Stern
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