SATIRE: Putin meets with Lavrov--the legal wheels spin in a KGB mind
Warning: This article uses Vladimir Putin’s crude statement about rape to illustrate both his depravity and the warped way he thinks about international law. The images it evokes are shocking, as are the actual rapes and other war crimes Russian soldiers are committing in Ukraine.
As Vladimir Putin orchestrates the holding of referendums in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine requesting that they be annexed to Russia, orders a partial mobilization, and makes nuclear threats, it is useful to consider what a fine legal mind he has, which may reveal a connection between his annexation plans and his nuclear threats.1
Adapted from The Trenchant Observer, April 27, 20222
Putin, at the press conference after his meeting with Macron, used extremely crude language to tell Ukraine it just has to accept Putin’s position in the Minsk II negotiations.
“At one point, insisting that the Ukrainian government should be forced to implement provisions of the Minsk peace accords, Putin even quoted a line that features in an obscene song with allusions to rape and necrophilia: ‘Whether you like it or don’t like it, bear with it, my beauty,’ he said.”
–Ukraine Crisis, February 10, 2022: Putin compares Ukraine’s role in Minsk II negotiations to that of rape victim; Lavrov treats British foreign secretary Liz Truss with disdain, The Trenchant Observer, February 10, 2022.
Dispatches
1) Javier G. Cuesta “Moscú amenaza con una “respuesta dura” si Occidente anima a Ucrania a atacar territorio ruso; El ‘número dos’ del Ministerio de Defensa británico ve legítimo que Kiev recurra a esta estrategia para paralizar la ofensiva del Kremlin, ” El País, el 28 de abril 2022 (13:22 EDT).
SATIRE
Where is our sense of the ludicrous, of the bathetic?
News sources report, matter-of-factly, that Russia and Putin or Lavrov are denouncing the fact that Ukraine carried out attacks within Russian territory.
Imagine a conversation between President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:
Putin: The Ukrainians are violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. How dare they do that!
Putin: Sergey, didn’t you tell me that would be a violation of the U.N. Charter?
Lavrov: Well, yes I think I did…Normally,…
Putin: Don’t give me any of that “Normally” crap, Sergey. Is it or isn’t it?
Lavrov: It is. Yes, sir, it is.
Putin: I thought so.
Putin: Now, Sergey, the other night we were talking about one of your legal “hypotheticals”. Well, I may have gone to law school, but fortunately my KGB training helped me overcome that brainwashing rather quickly.
Putin: Where was I? Oh, right, the other night we were talking about one of your legal “hypotheticals”.
Now, hypothetically speaking, if I am raping someone, and somebody comes up and grabs me and tries to stop me, isn’t he committing a battery against me, what they used to call a “battery” in the English common law? An unwanted touching, or more, is the concept I remember from my law school days.
So, if that guy interferes with my rape, and tries to pull me away, isn’t that an unwanted touching of me, and therefore a battery?
Lavrov: Well, Sir, it’s complicated…
Putin: SERGEY!!! Don’t give me any of that “it’s complicated” crap. Is it a battery against me? Or not?
Lavrov: Well, yes, it’s a battery against you all right, Sir.
Putin: Now let’s take the hypothetical one step further. If that guy interferes with my rape, and tries to drag me off “my beautiful one” and I then, after I’m finished with “my beautiful one”, I go and burn down the guy’s house, that’s self-defense, right?
Lavrov: Do you mean you interrupt your rape, and go and burn his house down, and then come back and finish your business with “my beautiful one”?
Putin: SERGEY!!! Let’s just say I finish my rape, and then go burn his house down.
Lavrov: That’s self-defense, all right, because you are defending yourself from this madman trying to pull you off of his wife. Self-defense. Yes sir, self-defense.
Putin: OK, Sergey, let’s take your hypothetical a little further.
If I am in the middle of my rape, and the husband is just thinking about pulling me off his wife, and I threaten him by saying if he tries to intervene in my business I will burn his house down, is that self-defense, too?
Lavrov: Well, yes, that would be a kind of anticipatory self-defense.
Putin: SERGEY!!! What have I told you about saying “kind of”?
Lavrov: Self-defense. Yes Sir, that would be self-defense.
Putin: Now, Sergey, let’s turn your hypothetical to a practical application.
If NATO even thinks about interfering with my “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, and I threaten them with nuclear war if they interfere, that would be self-defense, right?
Lavrov: Yes Sir. That would be a threat to act in self-defense, and if you launched the missiles, that would be an action taken in self-defense.
Putin: In accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Right, Sergey?
Lavrov: That’s right, Sir. Article 51. You have an excellent memory.
Putin: Now, Sergey, what can we do about Ukraine attacking targets in Russia? Violating our frontier. Violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
Lavrov: It’s complicated.
Putin: SERGEY!!!
See “Ukraine War, September 21, 2022: In response to Putin's nuclear threats, tell the world what various nuclear exchanges would look like, in detail,” The Trenchant Observer, September 21, 2022.
“Ukraine War, April 27, 2022 (II): SATIRE–Putin says, “If you try to interfere with this rape I’m carrying out, I’ll burn your house down”; Russia decries violation of its territorial integrity by Ukraine,” The Trenchant Observer, April 27, 2022.