Ukraine War Day #46: The Face Of The New Russian Spring

Dear Readers:

For my post today I have two important topics, so let us get to it.

Tochka-Who?

In case anybody still believing any B.S. that comes from the Ukrainian government, Russia has the receipts showing that the rocket launched from a mobile Tochka-U complex last week, which killed and wounded so many civilians at the Kramatorsk railroad station, was launched by a unit of the Ukrainian army. Recall that the entire purpose of a Tochka-U rocket is to be an anti-personnel device. It is not meant to, and not capable of, damaging heavy equipment, like railroads. The pellets in the cluster bombs are intended to kill and injure people. Such as soldiers. Or civilians, as in this case.

You can see part of the words “За детей” scrawled in white paint on the side of the rocket tail.

The reporter is Vera Basilaya: The Tochka-U is of the type cluster munitions. When the rocket blows up and releases its shrapnel, the tail usually remains. This is why people were able to read the message which somebody had scrawled on the tail: “За детей” (in Russian). This is translated (correctly) as “For the children”, but the actual semantics allow for some ambiguity, in Russian, just as in English. [As in: This rocket is meant for the children, i.e., to kill them; or: This rocket is to avenge our children? It’s exactly like when you say in English: “Do it for the children.”]

Along with the cruel message, the tail of the rocket also preserved its serial number.

So, what was the serial number of this rocket? Annoyingly, the reporter doesn’t tell us exactly, we have to infer it. [Maybe it’s a military secret, being kept for the war crimes trial?]:

The reporter quotes the Donetsk TV station Union which covered this story: “Prior to this [incident], in Donbass we have been shelled by Ukrainian rockets with the serial numbers Ш91565, Ш91566. The one that hit Kramatorsk is in the same numerical series, just 13 numbers different.”

yalensis: So, that would be, say, Ш91579 ? According to the reporter, this proves that, not only was this rocket part of the same Ukrainian series, but even came from the same unit as the ones who have been shelling the Donbass since 2015. More precisely, the Ш91566 rocket was shot down over the Donbass city of Debal in 2015.

This Is The Real Russian Spring

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

(Barbara Frietchie, by John Greenleaf Whittier)

Those of us who follow the Russian scene, have never seen anything like this since the Great Patriotic War. The level of patriotism is off the charts. Well, that’s normal at the start of a war, but this is not the same thing as the usual war fever. The latter something usually drummed up by the government and elites. In this case, I would say that most of the fervor comes from below and does not necessarily even match the narrative of the ruling elite. In fact, we have seen patriotic bloggers, especially pro-Russian Ukrainians like Podolyaka and Onufriyenko, express disgust with the Kremlin and its various talking heads. They see Putin’s inner circle, if not Putin himself (“The Tsar is surrounded by traitors!”) as overly cautious, too sensitive to European public opinion, not willing to go all the way, not prepared to finish what they started. The Russian people, in its overwhelming mass, wants to win this war. They do not want a negotiated settlement that would leave the Kiev regime intact. They want nothing short of a complete and total victory, with Zelensky signing capitulation papers for unconditional surrender, and then hustled off to Moscow for his War Crimes trial. They want to see the perpetrators punished, those Azov beasts who tortured the Donbass people for 8 years and burned Odessa citizens alive. They want to see the triumph of Justice and a true de-Nazification of the Ukraine. Whether or not we shall witness such a maximalist triumph, is another question. But it is indisputably what the Russian people want to see.

Donbass militias plant the flag they love the most.

Well, except for a few, of course. There is that segment of the Putinite bourgeoisie (embodied by the likes of Dmitry Peskov and Xenia Sobchak) who still look to Europe for guidance and feel a bit embarrassed by this whole thing. (“Like, all of a sudden we are the barbarians, eek!”)

There is another segment of the Putinites who are more nationalistic, the Diunovs and the Medinskys and other quasi-fascists. It was probably to cater to this crowd, some of which can be characterized as out-and-out Vlasovites (Diunov, in particular, but Medinsky also had his moments in the past, when he defended the likes of Mannerheim), that Putin included the bullet point of “de-Communization” of the Ukraine, alongside “de-Nazification” as strategic goals. Methinks Putin was half-joking about the de-Communization, but Russian Nationalists like Diunov take this point seriously, blaming Lenin for the Ukrainian debacle. With these types there is bound to be a sense of cognitive dissonance when they see ordinary workers and soldiers from the Donbass carrying that flag that the Great Russian Chauvinists hate so much; that red flag with the hammer/sickle; running it up the flagpoles of liberated Donbass towns. The symbolism is fairly clear to anybody who knows a smattering of Russian history:

• De-Nazification = planting the red banner of victory replica from the Great Patriotic War
• De-Communization = planting the Russian tricolor which was the flag of the Kerensky government; and also emphasizing the Tsarist past of Novorossiya.

Either way, the Ukrainian flag and other symbolica goes away. For example in Kherson, the Russian tricolor was raised on the flagpole, the Ukrainian sob-story placards about the “Heavenly Hundred” were removed, and the street was named back from “Heavenly Hundred” to its original name of Svoboda (=”Freedom”).

Russian patriotism went off the charts.

It’s possible to build an uneasy alliance between the “red banner” types and the “tricolor” types, they all drive under the common letter of “Z”.

However, there are signs that certain members of the Putin crowd will no longer be accepted at the “Cool Kids” lunch table. People like Dmitry Peskov, for example. After the videos came out, of Russian POWs being tortured and murdered by Ukrainian Nazis, Russian patriotism hardened into righteous rage. There was no more tolerance for Peskov’s mild-mannered dithering and kow-towing to the European press and leadership. (“For sure, we have suffered serious losses on our side,” he reassured the Europeans.)

Popular pro-Russian Ukrainian blogger Mikhail Onufriyenko coined the viral internet meme, “We are not Peskov”. (“My ne Peskovy.”) From a Marxist POV Onufriyenko and the like represent the ordinary working class, they are pro-Soviet, pro-Russian and pro-red flag. Which puts them at odds with both wings of the Putinite coalition.

“We Have Been Waiting For You”

It was within this emotional and political ferment, that the Russian people found their new hero, a hero whose lined and worn, but noble visage embodies the entire face of the war. This nameless hero is a little old lady living in a remote Ukrainian town. Nobody knows her name, but every Russian patriot is rooting for her. She embodies that unbreakable link between the Great Patriotic War and the de-Nazification “special op”, here is her story:

This woman, who is very old and probably half-blind, saw soldiers approaching her hut. She assumed they were Russians. Grabbing her red banner of victory, she went out into her yard to greet them: “Welcome, Russian soldiers! We have been waiting for you, and we have been praying for you!”

She was lucky these were just ordinary Ukrainian soldiers and not ferocious Azov types, who probably would have slaughtered her on the spot. Instead, they just contented themselves with trampling her flag into the dirt and making fun of her. After which, to their credit, they were kind enough (like that old rogue Stonewall Jackson in regard to Barbara Frietchie, they still had a bit of a conscience left in their hollow hearts) to offer her some food.

The Ukrainian peasant woman proudly refused their chow, once it finally dawned on her who these guys actually were. The Ukrainian soldiers videotaped the encounter (of course they did) and loaded it up to the internet, probably so their friends could enjoy laughing at the addled old woman. Unbeknownst to them, this video ignited a secondary wave of patriotism that swept through Russia. “This was the most motivational video ever,” certain bloggers declared. Artists rushed to depict the iconic moment.

This is something that Ukrainian Nationalists and Russian Liberals alike can never understand: When neo-Nazis trample on the Banner of Victory, they are trampling on the Holy of Holies, on everything that is held sacred by the Russian people. This banner, which flew over the Reichstag, is the symbol of their losses and their victory, during the Great Patriotic War. To Russians, this is literally the answer to the question: “Why we fight…”

And also reminding people that the current war is just a continuation of the previous one; and also fought against (more or less) the same people as the last one. QED.