Emperor Putin Has No Clothes

The penny seems to have dropped for Trump, even if he did scramble for a while to pick it up. He has now decided just who are the bad guys. The bad guys are in Moscow and the good guys are in Kiev. He followed this up by calling Putin “crazy” – someone who had crossed a red line. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, responded by saying, “Trump was emotionally over-heated.”

The fairytale of The Emperor’s New Clothes suits Putin, as he seems to be losing his strategic generals in job lots. Cheaper by the dozen, not like eggs: they are so expensive the public are buying them singly. The generals and high officials, even in the regions, fall foul to car bombs, scooter bombs and hammer attacks. A recent car bomb near Kherson on 20 May took out four special Chechnya forces of the Akhmat Unit. A bit of tit for tat maybe...Russians had previously dropped explosives on a bus there, causing injuries.

‘No-clothes Putin’ is also suffering economically. The Russian Stock Exchange has taken a dive. The big Russian companies have lost about $100bn. Wars cost money. The economic front is where the war is won. Putin is also short on ammunition. Zelensky has been deliberately targeting Putin’s ammunition dumps with drone attacks. ‘The emperor with no clothes’ is also suffering from desertions. At the last count it was 49,000. As Jason Smart says in the Kyiv Post, the jig is up for Putin: he is on a gambler’s losing streak and has lost the shirt off his back. His nakedness is clear for all to see.

May 24 was the beginning of the weekend from hell. A massive 72-hour assault on Ukraine by Russian drones and cruise missiles. This was the largest assault so far. six died and 24 were injured in Kiev.

Halfway through the weekend assault, Ukraine had its own answer to Russian aggression: on 25 May, Zelensky attacked an chemical plant way inside Russia at Yelabuga in Tatarstan. The Ukrainians left a huge crater in the ground there. The plume of orange and yellow smoke was five kilometres high and Russian soldiers were overcome by the poisonous fumes and the surrounding area was evacuated.

As if the Ukrainians were not busy enough, the Kyiv Independent reported a 27 May attack on a missile-producing facility at Raduga in the Moscow region. Storage missile facilities were destroyed and the plant was still in flames on 28 May. Three airports were shut down. Shutting down airports is tactical; it affects the regions, not to mention the locals who are forced to feel the inconvenience of war.

A bromance seems to have broken out between Merz and Zelensky. This was evident during speeches at the Federal Chancellery where first names only were used and endearments abounded. Zelensky had his eye on the German Taurus missile. When Merz was in opposition, he proposed giving it to Ukraine. Now Germany and Ukraine will go into joint production of the Taurus. It is hard to believe that Germany invaded Ukraine during WWII – that is now ancient history.

If only Putin would heed Paul McCartney’s hit “Back in the USSR” advice, then all would be well again! But will he? He has no excuses. He attended Macca’s concert in Red Square in 2003 and was partly responsible for him performing there. They later met in a televised interview. The Beatles managed to put a hole in the iron curtain with their take of Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA”. Putin just needs to follow up with regard to Ukraine.