You cannot make this level of hypocrisy up. Facing an unprecedented national fuel crisis, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has reportedly appealed to the White House, begging them to convince Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries.
The unspoken Russian logic here is mind-blowing: "Hey, Ukraine has plenty of residential areas, theaters, schools, kindergartens, and hospitals you can bomb instead! But hands off our refineries—that's PRIVATE PROPERTY!"
This plea comes from the very regime that has spent four years systematically turning Ukrainian cities to ash, targeting children's hospitals, and leveling civilian infrastructure. But the moment Ukraine’s precision drones strike the financial heart of Putin's war machine 2,200 km away, Moscow suddenly rediscovers the sanctity of "private property."
A definitive confirmation that Kyiv's strategic campaign against Russian oil is hurting the Kremlin exactly where it matters most. #Peskov #KremlinDesperation #Hypocrisy #RussiaFuelCrisis #DroneWarfare #UkraineWar #BreakingNews
I look at Russians and I just don’t get them. The entire internet is flooded with videos of loser content: “Oh no, I drove to a gas station and there’s no fuel. I need to pee, I need to poop, how can this be? Aaaah, aaaah!”
I genuinely don’t understand it. Even in some truly dysfunctional countries, people eventually find ways to organize themselves and push back against a dictatorship or an oligarchy. We’ve seen that happen not so long ago.
But what’s happening here? Sure, as long as the war didn’t affect them personally, they gave no fucks. Now it does. Many of them don’t actually want this war, and from a geopolitical perspective, every major objective has failed. It’s obvious that Putain didn’t invade Ukraine just to capture Avdiivka.
And what happens? Nothing.
They sit behind VPNs, scrolling Telegram and Instagram, recording these pathetic loser videos.
If huge crowds of these very same ordinary complainers—not just activists, but regular middle-aged women and everyday people—came out into the streets in even a few Russian cities, let alone Moscow, that would already be something.
But they don’t.
And that’s what’s striking. Russia is, by and large, an educated country. The basic ingredients are there. But any sense of civic dignity is basically zero. Whatever the boss says goes.
And all these fantasies that someday someone like Kara-Murza will replace Putin—that’s just living in a parallel reality. What Kara-Murzas are people expecting in a society where citizens will stand in line for three hours to buy gasoline in what’s literally a petrostate?
It’s absurd.
Ukrainian defense manufacturer Fire Point’s booth at the Eurosatory defense tradeshow today, playing footage of their drones hitting the Moscow Oil Refinery just hours prior.
Russia Could Just Be Normal. But Here We Are.
Russia has a choice. It always has. It sits on more land than any country in history, stuffed to the permafrost with oil, gas, and minerals of every conceivable variety. Brilliant engineers. World-class mathematicians. The finest vodka ever produced by human civilization.
And what does it do with all of this? It invades its neighbors. Like a drunk uncle at Christmas.
Because here is what Russians are missing. That first evening in Rome, when the sun drops behind the rooftops and the whole city turns the color of warm honey, and you are sitting outside with something cold and local, and the air smells of coffee and something frying in olive oil, and you think: this is the whole point of being alive. Or New York in October, the light doing something extraordinary between the buildings, eating a pastrami sandwich the size of a small child, feeling genuinely optimistic about the human race. Or a rainy London pub. Nowhere to be. A pint slightly too warm. The irreplaceable comfort of being somewhere ancient and unhurried.
Russians could have all of this. Instead, the Kremlin has turned the largest country on Earth into a geopolitical pariah, weaponizing its own citizens’ futures for an empire that exists mostly in the fever dreams of one increasingly peculiar man in a very large building.
Funny how every American who visits Russia comes home convinced that Putin is misunderstood. Nobody visits France and comes back defending Macron’s right to annex Belgium. France does not do that to people.
The rest of us are just outside somewhere warm, drinks in hand, watching the sun go down, absolutely baffled.
And a little sad, if we are honest. Because some of the finest people I have ever met are Russian. Warm, funny, generous people who deserve that Roman evening and that New York October and that rainy London pub just as much as anyone. People I miss. People a lot of us miss. Who knows if it ever comes back. Who knows if the thing that was broken can be unbroken. But somewhere out there, a table has an empty chair. And the drinks are getting warm.
Candace Owens said she was going to Russia on holiday to "see their churches," but in reality, she's going to be a speaker at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
There is also speculation that she will meet with Dugin while she's there.
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