Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has been a strange sort of geopolitical mess, that’s for sure, and it has many of Moscow’s movers and shakers suggesting some desperate measures.
Much of the trouble has stemmed from the fact that Russia certainly isn’t winning in Ukraine. In fact, the Kremlin’s forces have been resorting to ever-more gruesome atrocities in recent weeks, leading to tens of thousands of war crimes investigations and calls from the European Union to begin a tribunal.
Then there have been the wild threats of nuclear annihilation that have ratcheted up in direct proportion to the trouble that Russia has been having.
Now, in what may be one of the most bizarre statements of the entire war, one Russian official has suggested that states within America could soon be annexed by Russia as well.
State Duma deputy Alexander Tolmachev was responding to an online poll that showed that some Americans wanted their states to break free from the U.S.
If Americans vote to secede some states from the country and express a desire to join Russia, Moscow will consider it, Tolmachev told Russian news site Podmoskovye Segodnya.
The lawmaker said that the U.S. was beginning “to decay,” and that its ally, the European Union, which has also provided strong military assistance to Ukraine, was “bursting at its seams.”
It appears as though he was being serious.
Tolmachev said this was a result of a failed American foreign policy. “Such initiatives are a signal that the citizens of the United States are dissatisfied with their leadership and are ready to take extreme measures, up to secession, if the current policy of America continues,” he said.
Mosregtoday.ru also reported the news, noting that on social media, some 80 percent of New Hampshire residents said they wanted to break away from the United States.
The idea is ludicrous, certainly, and belies just how out of touch many withing the Russian government have become.
