Dear Readers:

I have this piece today from VZGLIAD, by Dmitry Zubarev, reporting on an utterance emitted by Maria Zakharova yesterday on Vladimir Soloviev’s Sunday talk show. Regular Russia watchers know that Maria is the official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry — which is sort of like the American State Department, except staffed by professional diplomats instead of circus clowns.

Maria’s sound bite was a sharp rebuke to the insanity and frenzy of the British Foreign Service — also staffed by literal circus clowns such as Boris Johnson. Whose striking resemblance to Benny Hill has been pointed out by many commenters. Except that Benny was a talented and funny entertainer, whereas Boris is simply a foolish and reprehensible excuse for a carbon-based unit.

I don’t have time here to go into the Skripal case — readers will have to get that information elsewhere. For our purposes here it is sufficient to know that the Brits badly jumped the shark on this alleged poisoning (in London) of a Russian defector-spy and his grown-up daughter (who is a Russian citizen). Most smart people don’t believe that Russia actually did this. Oh, it’s not that Russia is the blue-eyed boy who never carries out extra-judicial assassinations on foreign soil, just usually not as ham-fisted as using a notorious chemical weapon.

Hence the likely suspect are the British spooks themselves. Who have never been shy about extra-judicial assassinations, not to mention spectacular provocations. One “theory of events” has it that the British MI-6 poisoned the Russian duo themselves then tried to blame on Putin, to create a “false-flag” or pretext for war. According to another theory, this act of public endangerment was NATO’s revenge for the Russian military thwarting an earlier scheme to employ chemical weapons in Syria then blame on President Assad. Or, one can believe that “Putin dunnit.” These are all just “beliefs” anyhow, since there are no real facts adduced, and nothing in the Westie media can be trusted. Not one single word. Not even the “the“s and “a“s. Either way, even if one believes as a matter of religious doctrine, that the Russian government did go far out of its way to poison this pair, one must still concede that the British reaction has been ludicrous and completely out of bounds. In the real world, even in the face of something like a terrorist attack, a normal civilized nation does not start shooting from the hip and screaming “HITLER!”

In any case, here is the sound bite from Zakharova:

“They [the British spokespersons] cannot sustain their theses… They just can’t sell this, using their own conclusions. Hence, they have gone over to the conception of anti-advertisement and black PR on a world scale. This is a colossal provocation. I would go even further than that: This is a colossal adventure.”

As in any shouting match between human beings, a point of no return occurs when one of the combatants employees a particularly painful trigger word or phrase. For Russia, a nation which lost so many people and suffered so much destruction while saving the world from the Nazi war machine, such a trigger is to be called Nazis themselves, or to be compared with Hitler. This is simply unforgivable and can never be justified. And yet the British side went there.

“Give us some kind of argument,” Maria complained. “But no, they have to compare us to the Third Reich and Nazi Germany…”

Maria was alluding to British Labor Party Deputy Ian Austin, whose grille compares unfavorably with his name-sake, Austin Powers. I know I know, it’s beneath a respectable blogger like myself to criticize a person based on their looks, or their teeth. But hey, these guys went there first by invoking Hitler! And this is what we have descended to, since Austin compared the 2018 world football championship (which is to take place in Russia) with “Hitler’s Games” in the 1930’s. Yes, first we descended from adult polemics to playground squabbles, and “So’s your old man!” And then went down even further, to “Planet of the Apes” type monkey business. If anything good came from this, at least we now know exactly what the world would be like, if ruled by apes.

So, what comes next? Unless Great Britain is serious about starting a war with Russia and sending in their Light Brigade against mounted Cossacks, then they must apologize for the Hitler crack. But even that is not enough — as the great Benny Hill himself once remarked, “Is too rate to aporogize!”

Maria Promises Retribution

But now comes the juicy part of the story. Up until now, Russia was super-patient and even Christ-like in its endurance of these verbal blows. But the Hitler thing was a bridge too far, so the Russian government transformed into the roaring Hulk. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…”

Hence, Maria, donning the robe of Nemesis, has promised divine retribution upon the heads of these sorry clowns who dared to compare modern Russia with Nazi Germany:

“We have [up our sleeves] a surprise for all those who lack a basic sense of conscience or have the gall to make any kind of comparisons between Russia and the Third Reich.”

Maria promised that she will unveil the “surprise” on March 29 — a quick check of my calendar, and that’s this coming Thursday! When pressed on what this surprise is, she wouldn’t say. Just you wait, she says…

Commenters are invited to submit their own speculations. I will start the process with this one:

The surprise will be when both Boris and Ian are whisked off to Russia for emergency orthodontic treatment — without novocaine!