By now, we ought to be used to it: Since February 24 of this year, every major speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin has been more threatening and deceitful, not to say bizarre, than the previous one. But even in this array, this week’s nationally televised remarks, in which he announced “partial mobilization,” stand out.
Populating virtually every sentence, the lies ,and non-sequiturs have reached the level of fantasy bordering on bizarre. He claimed Russia is battling in Ukraine not just a neo-Nazi regime (led, we may recall, by a Jewish president), but an “occupational” one. Since the end of the Cold War, the West has promoted “total Russophobia,” assisted militant Islamists in the Caucasus, and moved the “attack structures” of NATO toward Russian borders, he said. After cultivating hatred of Russia in Ukraine, Putin continued, the West pushed Ukraine toward war with Russia and then started such a war in 2014.
