Lužniki Stadium in Moscow, which also hosted a World Cup final, has only 78,000 seats. But according to Moscow authorities, on the occasion of Vladimir Putin’s speech on the anniversary of the invasion of Crimea, it contained 95 thousand people inside the stadium and more than 100 thousand outside. All with Z (modern update of the Nazi swastika and the emblem of “Special Operation in Ukraine”) on the chest.
Lies, even the most useless ones like this about stadium attendance, are a major component of Vladimir Putin’s post-Soviet propaganda.
What he re-proposed in his speech before the nation is identical with himself as in previous performances. The speech in front of the masses with “Z” on the chest echoed the same slogans “For a world without Nazism! For Russia! For the President! ”
Putin announced that “Special Operation”, as he calls his invasions, “is achieving its objectives” and that “heroic Russian soldiers” are being covered with glory.
“The words that come from the holy books (referring to the Bible) are universal values, loved by all peoples and all faiths, but also and above all by us: the confirmation is that our soldiers fight side by side, support and defend one another on the battlefield as brothers. “We have not seen so much unity in a long time.”
Lies again: international news is full of stories about recruits surrendering, units refusing to fight, and thousands of deaths in combat. So much so that to continue the war, Russia, despite having deployed most of its military power in Ukraine, must now turn to the Chechens, the Syrians and, despite Putin’s denial, the reservists.
The Russian leader’s speech was greeted and accompanied by nationalist anthems and slogans, but news agencies also talk about many of the public administration employees brought to the stadium by police in buses and trucks.
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All dictators speak in crowded squares or stadiums.
Vladimir Putin’s regime is a regime of violence, against the Ukrainians and against the Russians themselves: imprisoned, censored, purged if they do not respect the rules of state propaganda.
Senior Ukrainian state officials, from Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany to Foreign Minister Dimytro Kuleba or advisers to President Volodymyr Zelenski, explained to German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz, who distinguished between Putin and his people, that “Putin has decided the war, but it is the Russians who bomb us every day.” “Anyone who drops bombs on Ukrainian cities, shoots evacuees, forms a ‘Z’ in support of Putin.” “As in the 1930s, they bear responsibility, even if poisoned by propaganda,” Kuleba wrote on his Twitter account.
In short, can the people deny responsibility for the crimes committed by its government?
Can the hand that drops the bomb on Ukrainian civilians lined up for bread or flee the war really be innocent?
And can the people, who for more than 20 years have kept a man like Vladimir Putin in power by supporting his aggressive policies, accused by his own former KGB colleagues of being the one who organized the attacks of 2000 in Moscow, on the ruins of which he won the election, can this people plead not guilty?
At the time, a poll found that 80 percent of Russians preferred in their lives a strong man in power over civil rights.
Various polls in recent hours show that over 70 percent of Russians support the invasion of Ukraine ordered by their leader. Not only that, but they believe in the genocide of the people of Donbas (denied by a UN tribunal), they believe in the Nazism of the Ukrainians and the need to defend themselves from the West and NATO, which ” they want to destroy Russia” (in Putin’s words).
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Zelenski is right: Putin’s responsibilities can not be distinguished from those of the Russians. He is the one who decided to go to war, but they are doing it. And it is Putin who they vote for at every electoral step.
Ukrainians are showing the whole world what can be achieved when it really is freedom and dignity that are worth more than anything in life.
There is not much difference between those who rule with the violence of lies and those who put them into practice: Putin and his people have their hands dipped in blood.
As Dnipro Mayor Borys Albertovich Filatov told, “We are a people who love freedom, people who have learned to vote in a democracy and who have chosen the values of the Western world. We do not want to live in the Russian world.”
Ukrainians are dying for their freedom. The Russians do not.
