AP fans can be assured that the attention of all our hundreds of associate solitary reporters is focused on whatever makes Vladimir Putin happy or unhappy.
Which of course isn’t much, as he’s The Great Pretender.
Today is Victory Day in Russia, celebrating the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany in 1945, making it possible for the murderous Stalin to grab much of Europe into the Soviet orbit at the start of the Cold War, and we always knew that Stalin was very cold-hearted.
Which means that today, Putin pretended to celebrate Russia’s seriously lagging war in Ukraine. Read all about it at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/09/world/ukraine-russia-war-news.
Naturally, we arranged for our Chief Russia Correspondent, Foma Kheroshonski, to have a heart-to heart with Putin.
“Comrade Kheroshonsky, you’re the first one to know about this, so here goes: an hour ago, I dispatched Russian military aircraft from Vladivostok toward Anchorage, to reclaim that American territory back to where it was under the czars.”
“But sorrry to say, and be careful how you explain this, but they didn’t make it to Anchorage. Several of my planes got themselves stranded in the Aleutians because of lack of routine maintenance, without any means of rescue.”
“Live and learn, but the idea was to launch a counter offensive because the imperialist Western powers supporting Ukraine have defeated my brave Russian soldiers, many of whom I had to move from Vladivostok oblast.”
Kheroshonsky tweeted all this to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who smiled at the news as he prepared to order his aircraft to escort any Russian aircraft to Yukon Territory in Canada.