Russian president Vladimir Putin invoked Jesus, Devil, and transsexual bogeymen in a Kremlin ceremony for carving up Ukraine on Friday (30 September).
Putin signed eagle-embossed, leather-bound tomes making 4 Ukrainian areas a part of Russia in a palatial corridor, filled with clapping Russian VIPs, together with patriarch Kirill, attended by marching troopers in full-dress uniform.
The final time this occurred, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, marked a darkish hour for Europe’s post-WW2 safety order.
This time it is extra harmful, as a result of Russia is not in filled with management of the brand new territories it has claimed, amid Kremlin threats to guard Putin’s better Russia with nuclear weapons if want be.
Putin portrayed the annexation as a holy conflict towards the West, utilizing startling rhetoric.
“They [the West] are shifting towards open Satanism,” he stated in a speech broadcast to thousands and thousands on-line.
Western elites had been educating “sexual deviation” to kids who modified their gender, he stated. “We’re combating for historic Russia, to guard our kids and grandchildren from this experiment to vary their souls,” he added.
Putin invoked Jesus by title to bear witness to his “reality” and portrayed himself in messianic phrases.
“I imagine within the non secular energy of the Russian folks and my spirit is its spirit, the struggling of the folks is my struggling,” he stated.
“The destruction of the Western hegemony is irreversible,” Putin added, as he neared the climax of his oration.
His new mysticism stood in distinction to his justification for seizing Crimea in 2014, which he based mostly on historic grounds.
Putin additionally blamed “Anglo-Saxons”, referring to the UK and US, for blowing up two Russian fuel pipelines to Germany this week — in a possible casus belli with Nato.
He jeered the European public for hovering meals and vitality costs because of his invasion. “You want meals,” Putin stated. “You’ll be able to’t warmth your residences”, he stated.
However the remainder of his speech went alongside well-worn traces, accusing “the West” of imperialism, colonialism, hypocrisy, and historic sins such because the bombing of Hiroshima and Dresden in WW2.
Satanic phantasmagoria and sexual hate-speech are additionally acquainted themes in Russian propaganda.
Whereas Putin is thought for utilizing surprisingly foul-mouthed language, corresponding to necrophiliac jokes, at public occasions, his combination of intercourse, faith, and geopolitics on Friday was extra excessive than ever.
For his or her half, EU leaders are getting ready to impose new sanctions on Russia once they meet in Prague subsequent week.
They intention to blacklist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, who speaks of the Ukraine conflict and Russian id in equally poisonous phrases, together with 28 others.
They’re to strike at Russia’s oil, metal, and forestry industries.
The EU can be getting ready to copy-paste its Crimea journey and enterprise ban to the brand new Russia-annexed areas, because the conflict drags out.
“Russian journey paperwork issued in these areas [the four Ukrainian areas annexed by Russia on Friday] are usually not recognised by member states in addition to Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein for the needs of issuing of a visa and of crossing the exterior borders,” an inside EU doc stated, which is being ready alongside the brand new Russia blacklists.
Ukraine stated it was making use of to affix Nato in riposte to Putin’s gambit on Friday.
Putin’s celebration
The Kremlin solemnities noticed Russia’s 4 puppet-leaders in japanese Ukraine grip arms with Putin whereas chanting “Russia! Russia!” to a standing ovation.
Two of them wore Z-symbol lapel-badges, a brand which develop into synonymous with Russian atrocities dedicated in Ukraine over the previous six months.
The Crimea annexation, eight years in the past, noticed Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe again Putin on the UN in an indication of what he may count on this time spherical.
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Syria formally recognised Crimea as a part of Russia, however Russia’s larger pals, corresponding to China and Iran, by no means certain themselves to Putin’s whimsy.
The sample first arose when Russia recognised the independence of two Russia puppet-regimes in Georgia in 2008, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and when Putin was joined by Nauru, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela solely on the world stage.