When Nasa announced on 11 October that the spacecraft they deliberately crashed into an asteroid last month has beyond doubt succeeded in steering the asteroid from its natural path and that they had indeed altered the motion of a celestial body to possibly help humanity survive in the future, I could not help but wonder: how is it possible for aggressive troglodytes to exist on the same planet at the same time?

How is it possible that some countries do their best to work on technologies of the future that can boost Earth’s defence system designed to intercept a potential doomsday meteorite collision and literally save all of us, and others run around like cavemen, killing, torturing, raping and waving nuclear buttons and delusionally thinking that they are world leaders when in reality almost all of the UN votes against them?

Often enough, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, daydreams in public and compares himself to Peter the Great. I too find a lot of similarities, don’t you? Peter the Great, towering at more than two metres tall with a full head of hair… they’re practically twins!

Honestly, I have no sentiments whatsoever towards Peter I, but I’m offended on his behalf for the comparison. From mass killings of unarmed civilians to hysterically running to his underground cave in the woods every time the wind blows, the president of Russia most definitely would go down in history as Putin the Coward as there is nothing “Great” about him or his life. But there is a lot he does like a true coward.

The unmasked terrorism

Last Monday Russia and its president decided that they don’t even want to play the game when they pretend that they are fighting the Ukrainian army and aren’t committing genocide in Ukraine. With absolute zero wins on the battlefield whatsoever for months now and support for Putin reaching an all-time low, they finally found a way to boost morale: stop hiding that they are mass killing Ukrainians and just announce it and start broadcasting these “wins” on state propaganda TV.

And it worked! The whole of Russia rejoiced and celebrated the mass rocket attack on 10 October that killed 11 and severely wounded almost 90 people. The Russian propaganda machine was running photos of the attacked city centre of Kyiv with bodies of dead civilians and sharing their ecstatic joy and happiness.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

If you think about it, it is understandable — Putin hadn’t delivered a single victory for literally months, nothing. He lost the whole Kharkiv region in a few weeks. His army is stranded in Kherson. All his war crimes are getting out and are getting documented for international courts as territories are liberated.

Putin released all of the Azov commanders. Remember? The big and scary “Nazis” he went into Ukraine to fight? Remember when it was all about Azov? They were literally building cages on the stage in Mariupol to hold a trial for the Azov commanders. Well, not any more apparently. These days they are so unimportant that he just exchanged all of them…

Furthermore, Putin’s regular army is nowhere to be found, and those mobilised at the end of September are already being sent back home in body bags. Therefore, Russia desperately needed some wins, so finally admitting they were committing genocide made all of Russia happy.

Since last Monday, 10 October, Russian terrorists have bombed critical energy facilities across Ukraine. Russia has been launching missiles and Iranian kamikaze drones to destroy our power plants and substations. Having them out of order would mean Ukrainians are going to have to somehow survive the winter without electricity, heat, and hot water.

And that, of course, is a very hard task in Ukraine where temperatures can fall below -20°C in winter. Putin’s overall goal is to starve and freeze Ukrainians to death. And I do find it ironic that a country that denied creating the Holodomor famine in Ukraine is now doing all of the same things. Ukrainians know that they have a very, very difficult season ahead of them, but they are also very aware that they live next to a terrorist country that is trying to kill all of us, so, there is no panic.

We are preparing for the winter.

Russia is a terrorist state: Now officially

Openly announcing the genocide of Ukrainians on Russian propaganda TV did wonders for Putin’s ratings inside Russia. As far as Russia’s place in the world goes — not so much. And after last Monday’s terroristic attack, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) has adopted a resolution calling Russia a terrorist regime. 

The Pace document, “Further escalation in the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine” was presented in Strasbourg on 13 October. The unanimity in which all of the countries stood up against the terrorists, the nuclear terrorist, was very powerful.

As I’m writing this, I keep constantly checking the news: the sirens have been going off in Ukraine for two days non-stop, day and night, and a lot of critical infrastructure was hit throughout Ukraine today.

And I just want you to celebrate the great news I’ve just read: Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has announced that Nato will deliver anti-drone air-defence systems to Ukraine in the coming days! Isn’t this just fantastic news? I don’t think I have felt happier for a while.

Looks like it’s another huge win for the strategist of all time — Putin the Coward. DM