Vladimir Putin’s fifth column
Vlad the Invader thought he was going to stroll right on into the Ukraine and take it over, and the Ukrainians and the rest of the world would roll over after a bit of obligatory grumbling. That obviously did not happen.
Ukrainian forces are putting up quite a bit more of a fight than expected. Vlad’s military is more of a paper tiger than anything and troops that he needs to keep at home to prevent his own people from sending him on a one-way trip out a 10th story window had to be sent to Ukraine. Even his few remaining friends are pretty much telling him to go fornicate himself when he asks for troops.
As CNN’s Angela Dewan and other experts have pointed out, a recent incendiary speech by Vlad has largely proved that things aren’t going his way. In this speech, Vlad called those who oppose his maniacal visions traitors and scum and derided them as the “fifth column.” He even managed to get some homophobia in as well. His speech was a disturbing call back to when the Soviets used political repression and imprisonment to squash dissent – with many still alive to remember those times.
Tatiana Stanovaya of the political analysis firm R. Politik thinks Vlad’s world is starting to fall apart, and even if Vlad’s hired goons can stamp out public displays of disaffection she thinks Vlad’s popularity is going to start taking some major hits. I hope that’s the case, and if nothing else Vlad’s time as a world leader is coming to an end and he faces an international tribunal for his crimes.
