Boris Here, Comrade Clerk. Get operations on phone. Heads will roll. Or maybe only careers, this not being 1956 or even 1968. Still, some of this rabble will wake up one morning and find themselves a head shorter. I'm keeping a little list. Oh, for the glorious days of past before greatest geopolitical calamity of our time: disappearance of Soviet Union. That's what President/Prime Minister/Whatever He Wants to Be Putin called it. If only he could revive it--and he's not doing a half bad job of it. It's alive, it's ALIVE! Today Crimea, tomorrow who knows?
Is this operations? Get me, please, Viktor and Sergei on conference call.
Viktor? Sergei there? Yes wait, please, till I close door . . . Now then,
Have you lost your two minds?
What? No, we are not happy here! Nobody is happy here! Not on the inside, that is. We are putting on right public face, and have dances in street, but political operatives at highest level are not happy with you two. Have you no sense? Have you no acumen in political arts? Stupid operators! Useful idiots we like, but only in West. Not on our side, stupids!
Do you not get it? We won referendum with 96.77 percent of vote! No, we did not wish for more, idiot! Do you not understand that 96.77 percent is too much? That is stuff from Saddam Hussein and his Iraq! That is stuff from North Korea election! You cannot get 96.77 percent of people to agree that vodka is help on cold night. Do you not notice that in his own elections, our once and future supreme leader V. Putin allows himself percentages only in mid-60s? That keeps him in control of country, but doesn't stink like carp dead three days. As for more people voting in Simferopol than live there, did you not think anybody would notice? Where do you think you are? Chicago?
And what about Tatars' vote? Did not a single one vote? Let alone Ukrainians and other dangerous national elements, including those who delivered fiery speeches against annexation of Crimea--in Russian! Or were all those counted among 3.23 percent who voted against referendum? And why are they still at large?
Our friends in Kremlin would have been satisfied with 80 percent of vote. More than satisfied. When you steal election, it must look unstolen! Or you give away whole operation. 96.77 percent of vote! You make it look like we do not know how to pull off legitimate election fraud. Not even in Afghanistan, Egypt, Belarus or Louisiana do referendums get 96.77 percent Da. What were you thinking? Now even useful idiots in West make fun of sacred referendum.
Fireworks and dances, da, were good touch. But you could have made troops less conspicuous. Why? Because, stupid, it makes Crimea look like occupied country. Nothing destroys image of occupied country like looking like one. Cossacks whipping protesters? Troops at polling stations? You make it look like they were making sure referendum passed. Yes, of course I know they were, but point is they should not have been made to look like it, idiot!
And why not allow election monitors from UN? They never see anything anyway. Set up a photo-op with them at a safe polling place. Like any other Intourist resort and Potemkin Village. Remember, West is full of useful idiots. Use them! But remember: Always be subtle. Subtlety is all in these matters. Have you no training in Public Relations? The whips go under Cossacks' capes, not in hands. Press, television stations, street demonstrations . . . all must be censored, not specifically outlawed. Technical difficulties kept those TV stations off air, understand? Not anything we did. Understand, dummy?
No, no, please, you are not needed to make all this right. We have already taken steps to make sure it is. Beginning with big celebration of this victory you managed to mangle. Kremlin has put out press release saying Crimea has exercised right to self-determination. Our papers shout that Crimea is welcome back home like lost child, and ultra-nationalists, fascists, and other destabilizing radical groups in Ukraine--that is, anybody who won't be cowed--have been defeated in glorious struggle against terrorists. Unlike you, our operators here know how to declare Victory without sounding ridiculous. You could learn from them. That is why you are to report to Moscow in morning. Take early flight. You won't need luggage. Where you're going, accommodations have already been arranged. Bring overcoats. Tropical, Siberia isn't.
Meanwhile, there is more business to tend to after Crimea. We've already liberated that gas plant in Strilkove. The first Ukrainian soldier has been shot. Demonstrations have already begun in Donetsk and Rostov-on-Don. Soon there may be referendums there, too, and they will be handled more efficiently, convincingly, realistically. With just the same results. Piece by piece, V. Putin will get his old empire back. Whether it wants to get back or not is but a minor consideration. It will be done. Despite incompetents like you.
I am sending Eduard to your headquarters in Crimea. Yes, that Eduard. He will know how to handle your delicate situation with more . . . finesse.
Don't cry to me! Not after 96.77 percent. Do exactly as Eduard says, and maybe you will be allowed visitors after a time. Dasvidaniya. Till we meet again. If ever. (Click.)
Comrade Clerk! Get me our field operation in Donetsk. We will not make same mistake again. The voice of The Masses will be heard again--overwhelmingly but not too overwhelmingly.
Editorial on 03/19/2014