In a move that surprised precisely no one with access to a map, Vladimir Putin has announced that he will be making no concessions whatsoever on Ukraine, while simultaneously tightening the Kremlin's already iron-fisted grip on domestic dissent. The pronouncement came during a televised address from a room so vast and empty it could house the collective souls of every Russian liberal who has fled the country.
Putin, looking less like a world leader and more like a man who has just discovered a rival's Wi-Fi password, declared that any talk of compromise was 'unthinkable' and that Russia would continue its 'special military operation' until all aims were achieved. These aims, he clarified, include the complete dismantling of Ukrainian sovereignty, the creation of a land bridge to Crimea, and the elimination of any journalist who has ever used the word 'invasion'.
Meanwhile, back in the motherland, the Kremlin's censorship apparatus has been upgraded to such a degree that even thinking a slightly critical thought about the government now requires a permit. New legislation has made it a criminal offence to 'discredit' the armed forces, a term so loosely defined it could apply to anyone who points out that a Russian tank has a lower safety rating than a 1980s Lada.
'We are simply protecting our citizens from harmful information,' said a Kremlin spokesperson, whose face was so expressionless it could have been carved from a block of Siberian permafrost. 'There is no war in Ukraine. There is only a special operation to denazify a country that has a Jewish president. And if you say otherwise, you will be fined, imprisoned, or forced to listen to a loop of Russian state television until your brain liquefies.'
Conspicuously absent from Putin's address was any mention of the thousands of Russian soldiers who have returned home in body bags, or the tens of thousands who have fled the country to avoid conscription. These minor details were presumably deemed 'unhelpful' to the narrative.
As the world waits with bated breath for the next chapter in this farcical tragedy, one thing is clear: Vladimir Putin is not going to bend. He is a man whose flexibility is only exceeded by his willingness to burn down his own house to spite the neighbour's cat. And as the Kremlin continues to silence its critics with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Russia lurches further into a future that looks increasingly like a photocopy of its past. Only with more invasion, and fewer independent newspapers.
