The hardline Vzglyad newspaper often has more interesting comments from readers than the articles it publishes. Today a piece appeared suggesting that in Russia’s chain of allies there were “two weak links”. The two are Iran and Serbia.

A disgruntled reader promptly wrote in to say: “What allies? Where are those who think like us? There isn’t anyone who supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; most abstained.” For good measure he added: “aggression is bad; no one supports the aggressor.”

Accused of being an American, the reader gives it with both barrels:

“Russia landed on Ukrainian soil in ’14, seized Crimea and the Donbass. And it has now decided to extinguish Ukraine entirely. To do so the entire Ukrainian people are labelled Nazis, that they all kill and eat babies. Yet those hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Ukrainian army are defending their motherland, their children, wives, those close to them, who are being killed by Russian soldiers who have treacherously attacked their country. This is the truth of it.”

It is blatantly obvious from just these published remarks that Putin has a problem and it is not just on the battlefield in Ukraine. Vzglyad ru is not exactly Russia’s alternative universe like the Guardian, read by those who believe in foreign policy as social work. On the contrary it is read by nature’s hardhats who have a natural aversion to any kind of bullshit from authority.

Vzglyad ru:

6 October 2022

“В ряду союзников России есть два ослабевших звена”