Trump Still Doesn’t Get Why Putin Is In Ukraine
Before anyone tries to mediate a peace agreement, they should read what Russia is now teaching its youth.
Understanding Putin’s outlook is key.
Photographer: SERGEI GUNEYEV/AFPLiving in Moscow in the 1990s, I recall watching an after-dinner skit that a Russian acquaintance would perform. Standing next to a big pink wall map of the recently departed Soviet empire, she’d tap on Russia’s new neighbor states with a stick and then bark like a slightly unhinged school teacher: “Vot! Nashi!”, (Here! Ours!), “I vot! Nashi!” (And here! Ours!), thwacking each ex-republic in turn, before moving on to Alaska, California and beyond.
She was, of course, mocking the country’s neo-fascist nationalists, who had formed a group called, you guessed it, Nashi. It seemed funny at the time, but less so in retrospect.