Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Vladimir Putin used to speak of the Russian army as the second-most powerful fighting force in the world. But his war against Ukraine has clearly shown, as the Ukrainians like to joke, that the Russian army is now the second-most powerful fighting force in Ukraine.
Russia’s Supreme Leader has in fact managed to transpose Peter Sellers’s 1959 comedy “The Mouse that Roared” to the post-Soviet space, turning the Russian army into a joke.
Sellers played the leader of a tiny country with financial troubles. He concludes that, since losing a war against the U.S. guarantees American financial support for the loser, it would make sense for his tiny army to invade America, surrender and “suffer” the consequences.
Tanks roll on Freedom Square as they attend a military parade during celebrations of the 105th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, in Tallinn, Estonia, Friday, Feb. 24, 2023.Since Russian history doesn’t fully imitate art, Putin’s version of “The Mouse that Roared” transforms one of Russia’s smallest neighbors into a potential invader of Russian territory. I’m talking about Estonia, a country of 1.37 million citizens and 17,500 square miles, of course. Russia’s respective numbers are 146 million citizens and 6.6 million square miles.
Here’s a brief excerpt from a recent interview........