Facing stiff resistance in Ukraine and beset with crippling sanctions, Vladimir Putin is angrily using terms that echo the rhetoric from Stalin's 1930s show trials. Putin likened opponents to “gnats” who try to weaken the country at the behest of the West.
“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths — spit them out on the pavement,” Putin said during Wednesday’s call with top officials. “I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges.
“I don’t condemn those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera, those who can’t live without foie gras, oysters or so-called gender freedoms,” Putin said. “It’s not a problem. The problem is that many of those people are mentally there and not here with our people, with Russia. They don’t remember or just don’t understand that they are just ... expendables used for the purpose of inflicting the maximum damage on our people.
Putin and his lieutenants describe the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation” intended to uproot alleged “neo-Nazi nationalists” and remove a potential military threat against Russia— goals that most of the world has rejected as bogus. The tight lids on information have helped the Kremlin rally support of broad layers of the population who rely on state-controlled television as their main source of news. State TV programs carried an increasingly aggressive message against those who oppose the war.
Despite the draconian new laws, tight controls on information and increasingly aggressive propaganda, however, thousands of Russians showed up at antiwar protests across the country to face immediate arrest.
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