I’ve been periodically reading Croatian newspapers to get the sense of the level of propagandistic nonsense they are spewing, and I’ve seen one thing constantly repeated as if it were an absolute, undeniable fact they are working with.

It’s about this video:

Supposedly, minister Shoigu is “visibly uncomfortable” at the end of the video and that’s supposedly because the “crazy dictator Putin is giving him doomsday orders”. “Can he resist those orders if push comes to shove?”

I initially laughed when I first read some clinically stupid “psychologist” analysing their body language, but then I saw that this bullshit is taken seriously.

First of all, this recording is a standard part of Russian media circus, where they act if the orders are given on camera. What is actually happening is that Shoigu is thinking “ok, is this media thing done now, I have to get back to the command post”. He is actually uncomfortable, but because he doesn’t have time for that shit because there’s an actual war going on and he has other, more pressing things to do. The actual orders to raise the alert level were probably given more efficiently earlier, and if I’m reading things correctly, it’s actually Gerasimov and Shoigu who are advising Putin on military matters and are offering him options. Raising the alert level was a military recommendation to Putin, he greenlighted it, they had to record the command on video for publicity purposes and then the military guys really had other things to do.

That’s how I read it, but what do I know. 🙂