They live in bubbles of their own creation, these Russians. Very odd creatures, who build walls around themselves so that they can't see out, and cover the inside with reassuring scenes of comfort.
Russian mothers and wives have different approaches to send their husbands and sons off to die. Some are relieved that their man will finally amount to something more than alcoholism and abuse. The initial signing bonus will remodel the kitchen, and just one month will fix the car and allow her to afford the dentist. And then, as Putin promises, she will get a smaller check every month for the rest of her life, a widow benefit, although she may never see it in her account. She has a picture of a man in uniform to keep her company, which sits on the table for a while, and then on a shelf, and then gets tucked away in a drawer and forgotten. The bathroom needs a remodel, too.
Other women are lucky enough to find a man they love, and he see the posters and dreams of the better life his family will have of he serves just one year. One year can't be all that bad, and little Ivan can go to college, and little Maria will get her braces. A month later, his wife posts on VK (Russian Facebook): (this is a real post)
"Girls, tell me how to survive the loss of a loved one? My husband signed the contract on May 4, we talked on May 14, everything was fine, he was in the Belgorod region.
He warned me that he was turning off the phone because they were going on a mission near Kharkiv, and he would call in a week.
Yesterday morning they called me and told me to come to the military registration and enlistment office, and there they told me that my husband had died. Everything was like in a fog. I came home still waiting for him to call me, as he promised.
How is it possible that there was a man, and then he was gone, I don't believe it.
I don't understand what to do now, I couldn't have even imagined that this could happen. Maybe it's a mistake."
She lived in a bubble. A carefully built but fragile bubble of delusional innocent happiness, where Putin will make everything okay if we just do what he says. She sent her man off to war, to kill and maim, to rape and pillage, and it never occured to her that the other side is a good deal better at killing, since they don't waste so much time raping and pillaging. To her it was just another "zarabotka", her husband going away for a few months to work in another country and bring home Western money to spend in their tiny Khrushevka apartment. Now, he's gone, and she's with two children and past her best years, and will carry the burden that so many women so in Russia of single motherhood. The men are dead, drunk, or philandering. If they're unlucky, the men are horrible abusive. If they're lucky, he went to Europe for work and sends money home each month.
Russia has more single parent families than dual-parent. Putin was raised by a single mother, and we are still reeling from the effects of that today. A celebrity once joked that Russia had pioneered the concept of a single sex household — daughter, mother, and grandmother.
This woman had it all — a husband who loved her, children, enough to live on- and it wasn't enough, so she sent her husband off to war on promises of good pay, glory, and the gratitude of the motherland. How could this happen? Russia is winning, just look at the handful of tanks they captured! NATO forces are cowardly and they men are weakened by their nontraditional Western values and their lack of faith! Russia's army is the most powerful in the world! How could this happen?
Her bubble busted. The delicate illusion shattered. Now, she will not get $2000 a month. She can hope for the widow's payment Putin promised in March of 2022, but nobody actually receives the promised $62,000. Some women get a new Russian car if they make their case public, but most get condolences, a bag of food, and a bill for the coffin. This woman was lucky — the state recognized her husband's death. Often there is simply no news at all.
Her bubble is busted, she now she had lost her faith in three great leader, turning into another bitter, disillusioned Russian. Hope dies in Russia.
She isn't the only one, though, and perhaps she can take comfort that her bubble was no greater than that of the Dear Leader. Putin lives in his own bubble, where he believes that Russia is truly great, and that it could be the equal of any Western nation if only he could… if only they would… if only….if. It angers him when they look down on him at international meetings, not realizing that it is him, not Russia that they don't respect. He blames the oligarchs for the slow production, the generals for the disastrous casualties and lack of results, and the Army for the lack of air defenses. The strikes on refineries are particularly difficult to explain away, but even harder is the realization that they can't be repaired because they were built by the West. The engineers are to blame. Arrest them! The Generals are to blame! Fire them, arrest them! Take the money from the oligarchs, arrest them! General Popov, that traitor, who tells us of problems in the Zaporizhzhia front, arrest him! Lock him away! General Ivanov, he is corrupt! How dare he burst my bubble! The people will mobilize, and rise up to meet this challenge, because the Russians are a great people who can ensure in a crisis. Russia is always victorious in the end, if we can just hold out until… until… until…
If Russia could make a tank out of Vladimir Putin's information bubble, it would be invincible.
The hiring and firing and blaming and excuse-making only accelerate the collapse, so I won't begrudge them even a little bit.
At the beginning of the war Russia restricted economic information from being published and as time has progressed more and more information has fallen under the classified umbrella. Rosstat has now made petroleum production classified — striking the refineries has worked better than they want us to think. General managers and chief engineers had better keep their eyes open and their passports ready… too late! Aleksei, you should have jumped ship when there were still life boats available. It must be your fault that oil production is down, because if we admit that it was the Ukrainian drones, which were all shot down and are an insignificant threat and a few lucky shots cause by falling debris, then Putin's bubble will shatter, so why did you sabotage your motherland, Aleksei?
Post Script
The Original Bunker Scene from the 2004 movie Downfall is more well-known than the film itself— watching the clip on YouTube prompted me to refresh my memory of the movie's title.
Krebs: The enemy has managed to break the front in a broad formation. In the south, the opponent has taken Zossen and pushes on Stahnsdorf. The enemy now operates on the northern outskirts between Frohnau and Pankow. In the east, the enemy has reached the line Lichtenberg, Mahlsdorf, and Kahrlshorst.
Hitler: All will be well once Steiner strikes back.
Krebs: My Führer, Steiner…
Jodl: Steiner couldn't gather enough troops. Steiner couldn't conduct the strike.
Hitler: These men shall stay in this room: Keitel, Jodl, Krebs, and Burgdorf…
That was an order! Steiner's strike was an order! Who are you not to follow my wishes? So it has come to this! The Generals have lied to me, and so has everyone else, even the SS! The whole war leadership are filled with nothing more than a bunch of heartless, cowering oafs-
Burgdorf: My Führer, I cannot allow you to belittle all these fighters that have bled for you!
Hitler: That's what they are! Useless cowering backstabbers!
Burgdorf: My Führer, what you are saying is truly awful!
Hitler: Our war leadership is the rotting trash of the whole German folk! Worthless! They call themselves "Generals" after spending year after year in the Military Academy, where they only know how to handle a knife and fork.
For years, the Generals have held me back from upholding my deeds. They have put all kinds of blocks over my way. What I should've done from the start was to kill off all the high-ranking Generals, as did Stalin!
I never stepped foot in an Academy, yet look at what I have done on my own: I have overtaken all of Europe!
Wronged… since the very beginning, I've been lied to and backstabbed! What a heinous deed done against the German folk! But these turncoats will be settled with! They will settle this with their blood and choke in their own blood!
My orders are lost in the wind. Under these conditions, I cannot lead anymore. It's all over. The war… is lost. But men, if you think that I will abandon Berlin, you couldn't be more wrong! I'd rather shoot my head off! Do what you will…
This, of course, is too much to hope for. Nobody will invade Russia from the West, but as Putin's bubble shatters, so does his mind and his will. The first crack was Ukraine not submitting to Russia in 2004, and again in 2014, and again, finally and totally and forever, in 2022. That was the last straw of his sanity. How could Ukraine, their most Slavic subjects, not want to be part of Great Russia? How could they reject Moscow, who had protected them for so long from the depravities and horrors of flush toilets and free markets? If Ukraine could reject the Kremlin, then the Russians might, too…
Like the bubbles and foam scum of industrial waste on a polluted waterway, Russians live in a great mass of information bubbles, held together by lying bureaucrats who fear for their status, lying generals who fear Lyubianka, and lying media who keep the public ensconced, which all feed in the end to Putin's circle, maintaining the greatest bubble of them all.
Russia is not great. It is not exceptional, or well loved, or advanced, or glorious. It is just a country. A place. Like all the others, it could earn a better lot in the world — it could be like America, who has to build walls to keep immigrants out, but instead Russia builds walls to keep emigrants in. The bubbles are bursting, one by one, and the more that burst, the less stable the whole mass becomes.
Plop! Plop! Plop!
Tick tock, Vladimir. Tick tock.