The Russians use the noun ‘koshmar’ (nightmare) when they come badly, when a new setback of fate is thrown at them. The term comes from the French ‘cauchemar’, and for them it represents the crutch of despair. “What a disaster!”, “terrible!”, could also be translated like this. With that word, repeated three times, Yuri, my great Russian friend, began the WhatsApp that he sent me yesterday to comment on the new move on the board, President Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization of reservists, about 300,000 citizens. “I walk down the street,” he continued, “and I look at the young people, wondering if they will still be alive in a year.” It would no longer be his turn to go to the front, but I don’t dare ask him about his son Andrei. We haven’t talked on the phone for several months, all summer. We exchange greetings, memes, soft jokes and some news that the Western media prefers to tiptoe over, but we both know, without mentioning it, that we owe each other a thorough conversation, with pants removed. We’re sneaking it. I’m afraid they’ll listen to us. I’m afraid to compromise it, and we don’t have words anymore.
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We do not know exactly what has happened in Kharkov, the extent of the Russian withdrawal, but it seems clear that Putin is getting shot in the butt. At the same time, he cannot afford to lose this war, because defeat, continuity and supposed glory go to him. At the risk of being wrong again, I sincerely believe that Putin would be unable to push the nuclear button, that his thing is a flight forward, pure bravado and blackmail, but at the same time the cornered Russian bear is terrifying. Is no one going to impose an ounce of sanity? France and Germany together could redirect the situation, force a dialogue table, but it seems more effective to continue pumping weapons and money. Sacrifice the Ukrainian pawn to annihilate Russia in a long conflict.
the vain memory
Putin, a mental prisoner of his own rhetoric, it has invoked the memory of the Second World War, sacred to the Russians, in order to defend its foreign policy interests. Until the invasion, reasons were not lacking, but we humans insist on not learning. Meanwhile, the classic has just arrived at bookstores ‘In the trenches of Stalingrad’, by Víktor Nekrásov, himself a combatant in the famous battle and not at all complacent with the Soviet regime. The protagonist pronounces a phrase that would be worth it for today: “In war one cannot believe in anything other than what is right in front of one’s nose.”