Putin-kin Village
Russia plans a town to attract political extremists from the West. Sounds win-win to me.
Somewhere in Hell, Jim Jones is finding out about this and going, “Seriously? They wouldn't let us move to Russia but they'll take in these guys?”
Russian authorities will launch construction of a village outside Moscow for conservative-minded Americans and Canadians next year, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday.
Russia has for years positioned itself as a bastion of "traditional" values in contrast with Western liberalism as its relations with the West have deteriorated over its 2014 annexation of Crimea and 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Timur Beslangurov, a migration lawyer at Moscow’s VISTA Foreign Business Support, claimed that “around 200 families” wish to emigrate to Russia for “ideological reasons.”
“The reason is propaganda of radical values: Today they have 70 genders, and who knows what will come next,” RIA Novosti quoted Beslangurov as saying, echoing President Vladimir Putin’s frequently deployed grievances against Western countries’ comparative gender freedom.
“Many normal people emigrate and are considering Russia, but they’re faced with huge bureaucratic problems with Russia’s migration law,” he said.
He said the Moscow region administration has greenlit the construction of the expat village and that it will be financed by the relocating families.
I propose we grant Russia a sanctions waiver so they can get whatever they need to build this and attract the kind of extreme right-wingers so afraid of drag queen story hour that they'll move to a crumbling dictatorship halfway across the world.
But that’s just a start. It’s not just extreme right-wingers who might be up for a new life in Russia:
That far-left organization was tweeted approvingly by a self-professed “Democrat” who participates in MAGA rallies with Holocaust deniers. Go ahead, tell me horseshoe theory isn’t real.
Tradcongrad is a good start, but if the Russians want to build Tankieburg to be the Shelbyville to the right-wingers’ Springfield, I’ll chip in a few bucks to donate a ceremonial lemon tree.
Don’t put Scott Ritter’s house anywhere near the village school, though.
Further to Friday's post about the Ukrainians using a drone to help a Russian soldier surrender, they actually have a phone hotline, website and social media accounts set up to help more Russians desert their posts:
Bound for the battlefield, sounding harried and anxious, the Russian soldier placed a hasty phone call — to a Ukrainian military hotline.
“They say you can help me surrender voluntarily, is that right?” asked the serviceman, explaining that he was soon to be deployed near the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.
“When Ukrainian soldiers come, do I just kneel down, or what? Do you promise not to film me while this is happening?”
In fluent Russian, the hotline operator calmly assured him he’d be given detailed instructions on how to safely lay down his weapon and turn himself in.
“When you get to the front lines, just call us right away,” she said.
At a crucial juncture in an extraordinarily bloody war, Ukraine’s military is focused on one task: removing Russian soldiers from the battlefield. But faced with a foe whose ranks are known to be riddled with unwilling fighters, Ukrainian military strategists realized there might be more than one means to that end.
With that, the “I Want to Live” outreach was born, aimed at providing invading forces with step-by-step information on how to abandon the ranks. Initially run by Ukrainian police, the program has had a ramped-up, military-operated version in place since mid-September.
[…]
Russians who want to turn themselves in are told to wave a white cloth, remove the magazines from their guns, point the barrels to the ground and eschew body armor and helmets. They are assured that in the event they want to be sent home in a prisoner swap, their paperwork will reflect that they were captured, not that they gave up voluntarily.
If it’s a bring-your-own-tank surrender, which happens not infrequently, the turret is to be turned in the opposite direction. If it’s a group surrender — also a fairly common occurrence, with a Russian squad often fearing retribution from commanders but agreeing to act jointly and surreptitiously — the highest-ranking soldier must identify himself.
No side in a war, even the one acting clearly in self-defence, ever emerges from a war with its hands completely clean, and there are some allegations that Russian prisoners have been mistreated. Any Ukrainian personnel involved should face legal consequences for it.
But, by and large, the comparison with Russia’s treatment of its prisoners of war is jarring:
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