Russia's unparalleled propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, hosts an evening television show in support of all things Putin. In this short video, he offers an expansive look into a nation on the edge of emotional collapse, although he could be playing a reverse psychology game of greater patriotism through deeper humiliation.
The mood of Russia's top propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov in this clip can be summed up as "Hello darkness, my old friend." He demands some victories and complains that people are running away from Russia. He also sighs. A lot. pic.twitter.com/0NNetH3hLi
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 29, 2022
Of particular note is that Solovyov has always promoted his superpatriotism, but it may have taken a hit recently when he revealed his most outstanding feature to be a sham. On air, as I posted at the time, he whined extensively about being called up in Putin's "partial mobilization." Military service is for others, he cried — for instance, Russia's ethnic minorities; they should go in his place. In this clip he attempts amends, saying those poor, bedraggled "ethnic groups" should be drafted "proportionately."
Which is but one small part of Solovyov's extraordinary lament in this video. He correctly notes that "the world has lost its way, there is no more wrong and right, the lies or the truth, everything is in some kind of gray zone." For starters, his own words. But his larger truth stands unmolested as well.
In forgoing a massive, unilateral military force to counter Vladimir Putin's bloodletting invasion of Ukraine, "the world" has lost its way; it has abandoned its once-unified pledge to never again allow space to a mad dictator's evils. The world's 1930s lethargy resulted in 70 million deaths and the final touch of a thermonuclear wasteland. Against the present evil, the globe's civilized leaders have returned to useless geopolitical strategizing — useless in the face of pure evil — and the provisioment of but a military lifeline to Ukraine, not the instruments of triumph — a "kind of gray zone."
This diminishes the West's proud proclamations of defending Ukraine honorably; the West is mixing lies and the truth, which further blurs the distinctions of right and wrong.
Solovyov spoke more than he knew, or at least more than he meant. The wrongdoing of this preventable seven-month-and-counting war is singularly black and white. The blame is not Russia's alone; it extends across Europe, and then across the seas to the United States.