So I decided to find out what the news were on Putin’s disappearance and turned on the Russian TV. The images I saw were weirdly familiar but it was hard to place them because they were not what I expected.

Soon it became clear that these were, indeed, images of the protests in Ferguson. For the next 10 minutes I stared at the images of Ferguson on Russian TV. There was no commentary to accompany the footage. 

The Russians are working hard to maintain the myth of the mysterious Russian soul.

Putin hasn’t been seen in public for a week and suspicions, explanations and possibilities -from hopeful to tragic – are flying.

The hopeful explanations are centered around Putin being dead. The tragic suggest that he’s busy planning a change of course towards an openly Stalinist model or possibly a nuclear war.

And I just suspect that he’s getting yet another plastic surgery. He did look like a person who’s had a stroke right before disappearing from view but people do tend to look that way after Botoxing like crazy for a decade.

I also think this is all a ploy to distract attention from an approaching Russian offensive on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. A huge number of troops has been gathered near the border and right in front of Mariupol.

So here is a photo from the notorious “Russian March”, a yearly manifestation that takes place in Moscow and other major cities of Russia every November:

For almost a year, Russian news channels were showing this photo and accompanying it with statements like, “There is a growing neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine that has control of Ukraine’s government.” The newscasters are not saying that these pictures are of Ukrainian neo-Nazis but this is a conclusion everybody who sees the images immediately draws.

This is pure genius, my friends. Film your own neo-Nazi movement, accuse somebody else of being a neo-Nazi, and show the footage to prove your claims.