BALALAIKA – The Counter

Paris, Wednesday 18 January, 9.30pm. On BFM-TV, three journalists talk with Alexander Makogonov, minister counselor of the Russian embassy in Paris, that is, one of Putin’s spokesmen in Europe. Makogonov – about forty years old, blue suit, tie idem, light blue shirt, expressing himself in impeccable French, which reminds us that the KGB or, now, the FSB, is the best language school in the world – comments on the bombing of Dnipro, Ukraine. There, a few days ago, a Russian missile, the KH-22 – a 950 kg bomb, designed to destroy aircraft carriers – literally split a nine-story building in two.
It is not the first time they have used them in Ukraine. Imagine, you are watching the Turkish TV series and you get that gift from the Kremlin through the ceiling of the dining room. Russia does not kill civilians, Makogonov says, it is the Ukrainians who put their anti-aircraft batteries in urban housing complexes, which is why the war has caused so many civilian casualties. “Are the Ukrainians the ones exterminating their population?” asks a journalist. That’s right, Makogonov replies without batting an eyelash, if it were for Russia there would be practically no civilians killed. Then, the elegant diplomat endorses the statements of Sergey Lavrov, the plenipotentiary foreign minister of the new Tsar who, with the awaited and monotonous voice of the apparatchik emerged from the cold, declared that same morning in Moscow that Russia is the victim of a “final solution”, a new “shoah” orchestrated by the West to erase it from the face of the earth. Makogonov repeats the score perfectly: just as Western Europe united behind Napoleon to end Russia and then aligned behind Hitler to end the Soviet Union, now the West, under cover of the defense of the criminal regime of Ukraine, joins in the most extraordinary war aggression since World War II to annihilate Russia. One of the journalists then tells Makogonov that the one who signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler was not any European country, but Stalin and reminds him that Western democracies have not destabilized Russia, but the Kremlin, on the other hand, finances all European ultra-right parties (I would add: and those of Latin American ultra-left). The Russian official, annoyed, sweeps away that argument from the hand and insists: Western Europe and NATO are the new Third Reich and seek the destruction of Russia. He does not say it like that, but it is heard clearly: from Holy Russia.
Volodomir Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, has spoken before the parliaments of most Western countries, calling for political and military support for his people. In Chile, on the other hand, the Communist Party and sectors of the Frente Amplio have refused to listen to him. And they’re right! Instead of listening to Zelenskiy we should listen to Putin, perhaps then we would realize what a hornet’s nest we are in. On French television, the last question for Makogonov was: What if Russia had to withdraw from Ukraine? The Russian, livid, replied: before that happens, all Russian nuclear firepower would fall on the West, you have not noticed, but perhaps we are living the last weeks before nuclear war. I say, why not listen to Putin in parliament, in fact, why not propose that in case they have to withdraw from Ukraine, he, Lavrov and all the Makogonov of the regime come to Chile? After all, if we welcomed Hoenecker we could perfectly well receive Putin and his entourage. Putin and Lavrov would be wonderful, for example, in Tunquén. The rest, divided between Caburga and the Yungay neighborhood. It would be quite a contribution to world peace, wouldn’t it be true?
Zdorov’ye tovarischi, health mates, enjoy the summer…

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Original source in Spanish