Clarissa's Blog

The important thing to remember is that the conflict between PMC Wagner and the regular Russian army is over how to kill Ukrainians more effectively.

They aren’t fighting over anything happening in Russia. They don’t care about Russia.

In the meantime, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated part of the territory that has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

This is my part of Ukraine. This is where I grew up. I can’t tell you how much this means.

This is a billboard near St Petersburg that advertised PMC Wagner. It’s being urgently removed:

PMC Wagner’s brand merchandise is being taken out of the stores. Yes, Wagnerites are a popular brand, didn’t you know?

Russians have deified Wagnerites. They were the epic heroes the country worshipped. The Wagner (think where the name comes from for a second) mystique was cultivated with a single-minded intensity.

Now there will have to be a large pivot away from the Wagner worship. The Russian authorities are already blaming – yes, you’ve guessed it – the Pentagon. Let’s see how fast the US fans of Russia start parroting these lines.

I’m eagerly waiting for Tucker Carlson and Rasheda Tlaib to come up with an explanation how the ongoing insanity in Russia with Russian mercenaries occupying Russian cities is the fault of the United States. Because with these people, everything is the fault of the United States.

Everybody knows that the Russian uprising is led by the same mercenaries who prevented Nicolás Maduro from fleeing Venezuela and forced him out of the airplane that was going to take him into exile, right?

That’s why Venezuelans are the only Latin Americans who are passionately supportive of Ukraine. The rest are still in the throes of their perennial socialist dream.

Not true but still very funny.

Would that it were true one day.

As usual, N and I have completely different interpretations of what’s going on.

He thinks Prigozhin is acting on direct orders from Putin with the goal of giving Putin an excuse to declare a state of exception.

And I think that Prigozhin got upset and is acting out without much of a plan.

You can see the cultural differences at work right here.

The best part of the Russian circus is the complete indifference of regular citizens to the tanks and heavily armed mercenaries known for their extraordinary brutality. A normal person would run away and hide but they just stand there and gawk.

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1672451365971345408?t=UHNmTMhzyA3Lqhv8L-lEvA&s=19

These people don’t know what’s real anymore. They’ve embraced the postmodern.

I deeply dislike Douthat but he gets it:

Reader Jim asked me to write about what’s happening in Central America, and I’m glad to do it. Thank you for the question, Jim!

The region has been made unlivable by the gangs. Life in Ukraine is a lot more comfortable, secure, and civilized than in supposedly peaceful El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It’s absolute horror. It’s not new horror but that doesn’t make it better. Two and a half million people have already left the tiny El Salvador, and over 60% of those who are still there are planning to leave.

The young Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele has been cracking down on the gangs, causing massive hissy fits among lovers of democracy who live in opulent countries and have no understanding of the extent of the problem in Central America. Other Central American countries and even Ecuador have timidly followed in Bukele’s footsteps. He’s suspended many of the civil freedoms, declaring a state of exception in the country.

Hispanic countries have a very poor track record with democracy. Spain finally got it right after 1975. Of course , Spaniards have already tried to tear up their brand-new constitution since then but at least there’s been no violence. Mexico achieved an actual democracy in 2000 but let’s be thankful it’s had no dictatorships in a century. The rest of Hispanic countries hobbled from dictatorship to a civil war to a junta until 1990s. Then most have managed to piece together something that resembled democracies if you squinted hard and looked at them at just the right angle.

Understandably, after witnessing Latin Americans raping each other with severed limbs of infants for a century, everybody is very nervous about any sign that Latin American “democracies” are losing even the formal characteristics of being democratic. But look, to have a democratic country, you kind of first need a country. El Salvador was fast losing everything that made it one and turning into a failed state.

I don’t know if Bukele can save El Salvador but I’m glad he’s trying. The Western belief that formal signs of democracy – elections, constitutions, political parties, electoral debates – will somehow magically turn people who love tearing each other to pieces for fun into a functioning society is a delusion. Nobody can make things better for Central Americans. I say, let’s leave them in peace to figure it out. If they want to Bukelize, let them try. It can hardly get much worse than it is now.

In the meantime, Putin has joyfully congratulated Russians with the Day of Youth, the regular Russian army is preparing to carpet bomb a large Russian city, and I’m back to my regularly scheduled programming. I totally take requests, though. Nothing is off limits.

That’s not hard to understand. Russia is gigantic. Even if Prigozhin’s mercenaries burn the city of Rostov to the ground, neither Putin nor anybody in the rest of Russia will care. People in Russia get off on violence and destruction of what they see as “the collective West.” That’s all they care about.