They go in for some weird shit in the name of defence, those Russians. Whether it’s confounding the Luftwaffe by using WWI biplanes so slow that the fearsome Messerschmidt Me-109s couldn’t slow down to engage them without stalling, or simply retreating over an iced-over lake and watching and laughing while the Teutonic Knights floundered and slid all over the place.
Then there are the truly bizarre Russian war efforts. Soviet research into “mind control” spurred the creation of the notorious MKUltra program by the CIA. Luckily, Stalin’s plan to breed a race of super-soldiers by mating humans and chimpanzees went nowhere (officially).
But the Russian dream of using “science” to create a race of super-soldiers apparently refuses to die.
Russia’s defence minister has taken time out from massing troops on Ukraine’s borders to unveil a ‘Dolly the Sheep’ cloning dream involving ancient royal warriors and their prize horses using DNA preserved in permafrost.
Why isn’t he cloning mammoths, instead of horses? An army of hairy elephants is sure to put the wind up the enemies of Mother Russia!
Sergei Shoigu – one of Vladimir Putin‘s closest allies – spoke about the potential of the extraordinary 3,000-year-old Scythian burials in Tuva, his mountainous native republic in Siberia.
The ancient Tunnug burial site of nomadic warriors – often laid to rest with their horses – is in an area known as the Valley of the Kings in Tuva.
When Shoigu, 65, initiated the Russian-Swiss archeological digs here three years ago a modern-day shaman was even drafted in by scientists to ensure the excavations did not anger the spirits.
I guess, before we laugh at that, that we ought to consider that our own defence hierarchy are apt to babble about taniwhas, or forbid personnel from angering the ancient spirits by “trespassing” on “sacred sites”.
To be fair, though, Shoigu isn’t exactly talking about resurrecting the ancient warriors of the steppes and drafting them.
The defence chief told a session of the Russian Geographical Society, also attended remotely by Putin, on Wednesday: ‘Of course, we would like very much to find the organic matter.’
He was referring to well-preserved remains of ancient people and animals, explained TASS.
‘I believe you understand what would follow that,’ said Shoigu in a broadcast by Zvezda TV.
‘It would be possible to make something of it, if not Dolly the Sheep.’
He added, without explaining more of planned genomic research that ‘in general, it will be very interesting’.
Still, we can only hope. The Scythians were pretty bad-ass, after all.
Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BC claimed the Scythians made cloaks from their victims’ scalps after victory.
The savage warriors are believed to have used their enemies’ skulls as drinking cups.
Legend says they drank the blood of their vanquished foes.
Daily Mail
Contrast that with today’s panty-waist defence brass who have an attack of the vapours at the very thought of a “warrior culture” in our elite special forces, and clutch their pearls at soldiers brandishing “death insignia”. Forget skull-cups, too: today’s military bureaucrats faint at even the sight of soldiers using a vanquished enemy’s wooden leg as a macabre drinking trophy.
No wonder we don’t win wars any more.
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