Do you want to keep the Ukraine from joining the EU? A lot of guys would have made speeches extolling the virtues of an economic partnership with Mother Russia, and if that failed, worked on a compromise that benefited all parties. You are not like a lot of guys, so you had your puppet ramp up the violence toward protestors until even the mildly disapproving joined them. That has not gone well, and as of this moment President Viktor Yanukovych is out, statues of Lenin (they still have statues of Lenin?) are being pulled down, and Yulia Tymoshenko is out of jail.
Do you want people to not pay attention to Pussy Riot? A lot of guys would ignore them and hope they went away, as annoying trolls usually do, and not done everything they could to give them free publicity. You are not like a lot of guys, so you gave them a huge show trial, packed some of them off to a cliched Siberian gulag for a year or two, then when they make a video (with cameras and reporters and everything) about how repressive your regime is, you send in fucking Cossacks with horsewhips to break it up. Not regular hired goons, but Cossacks, for centuries the czar’s storm troopers or Jesuits, whose very name has become a symbol of government repression.
Finally, do you want the rest of the world to not think you are the biggest closet case around? A lot of guys would keep it on the down-low, ignoring or avoiding the subject and not call attention to themselves. But as we’ve seen, you are not like a lot of guys. You have not learned from American politicians that there is a correlation between the amount of anti-gay noise they make and the likelihood that they will be outed. And for God’s sake, put your your shirt on. As much as you want it to, “looking good for 61” does not equal “Abercrombie & Fitch twink.”
In 2014 everybody who wants to carry a camera with instant connection with everywhere and everyone does. Gil Scott Heron was wrong when he said, “The revolution will not be televised,” because the technology was not there at the time. We do today, so, “The revolution will be no re-run brothers; the revolution will be live.” Just keep feeding those trolls.
The more I watch Pooty operate, the more I wonder whether Snowboarder Bo was actually right about Pussy Riot bringing him down. Only it wouldn’t be Pussy Riot, but Putin’s own insecurity in a century less suited for dictators and tyrants that beats him.
Whips? Really? Against unarmed women? Why not just broadcast your image world wide with “Weakling” tattooed on your forehead?
He should probably resist his impulse to grab little boys, yank up their shirts and slobber on their tummies, too. Just don’t touch the children, Vlad.
(covering my eyes, then peeking out to ask wincingly) Cite?
Pushing his girlfriend to be one of the final torchbearers even though she is only Russia’s second-best rhythmic gymnast (the best being Yevgeniya Kanayeva, still alive at the ripe age of 23), can be either bragging or over-compensating, depending on what his other actions say and how trollish one wants to be. I’m choosing the Way of the Troll and say, “You aren’t fooling anyone, Vlad.”
If I were a spook and had access to sat intel, I’d be curious about the locations of most Russian armor regiments. Putin strikes me as a traditional sort of fellow when he’s disappointed. And maybe there’s nothing like a Sochi Olympics to get everyone’s attention when there’s armor that needs to be moved around.
Those weren’t Cossacks, just some cheap costumed wanna-be cowardly bullies who, if they ran into a REAL Cossack would just wet their pants and cry for their mommies.
*Cossacks (Ukrainian: козаки́, koza’ky; Russian: каза́ки, ka’zaki), are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who became known as members of democratic, semi-military communities,[1] predominantly located in Ukraine and in Southern Russia. They inhabited sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper,[2] Don, Terek, and Ural river basins and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Russia and Ukraine.[3]
*
Others adopt Cossack clothing to try to take on some of their mythic status. Ethnic Cossacks refer to the re-enactors as ryazhenye (ряженые, or “dressed up phonies”).[114][115]*
*In modern Russia, Cossacks generally are members of nationalist militia groups who have adopted the style and dress of the historic Cossack ethnic group from southern Russia and Ukraine. *
These ‘cossacks" are as much "cossacks’ as neo-nazis here in America are members of the SS.
Right, but these specific fellas who whipped the Pussy Riot gals - do you know for sure that they were fake-ass wannabes, as opposed to genuine, bonafide, honest-to-бог old-timey ethnic Cossacks?
When they say “Cossack militia” they are talking about the posers.
" Cossacks say the people identifying themselves as Cossacks in Sochi are not truly Cossacks"
