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"title": "Congratulations to Russian President Vladimir Putin for electing Vladimir Putin the next Russian President",
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"contents": "<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, the poor Germans are having a hard time. And all they wanted was peace.</span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\r\n</span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What!</span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\r\n</span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s right. If everybody had done what Hitler wanted, there wouldn’t have been any war. — </span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shadows in Paradise </span></i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by Erich Maria Remarque</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, if only everybody had done what Vladimir Putin wanted, if only everybody had just left Putin to carry on with his attempt to wipe out Ukrainians from history, there wouldn’t have been a war. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just bloodbaths, executions, torture and mass graves. But </span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">never</span></i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a war.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russia had its latest fake election over the long weekend and it’s hard to believe, but the winner was … Vladimir Putin! </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Putin, the war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court for the abduction of Ukrainian children “won” with a “landslide” victory in Russia’s sham of a presidential election. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m genuinely surprised he got only 87% of the vote — I’m sure that his support is around 287% — a number that would have reflected the “unbelievable success” of this circus election more accurately. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second day of this rigged election was the second anniversary of a very dark day for Ukraine. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On 16 March 2022, Putin’s terrorist pilots dropped bombs on the Mariupol drama theatre, killing at least 600 people. As Mariupol is still under occupation, we do not know the precise number, but we do know there were about 1,200 people in the theatre, seeking shelter from the constant bombardment of the city. There were pregnant women, there were the elderly and, of course, there were children, too. People took their children to one building so that, as they thought, it wouldn't be bombed if they made it known they were sheltering younglings. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Photos of the collapsed theatre, alongside the word ‘дети’ (Russian for ‘children’) in huge letters, were transmitted across the world. These huge letters spelling out “CHILDREN” were written on the asphalt at the front and back of the theatre. Russian pilots used them as targets. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sadist who gave the orders to murder as many Ukrainians as possible and level a huge theatre with kids taking shelter there is the newly “elected” president of Russia.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elections in Russia... An oxymoron if ever there was one. The so-called elections weren’t free or fair. All of Putin’s true political rivals have been murdered over the years: Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Sergei Yushenkov, Natalya Estemirova, Sergei Magnitsky... </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most recently, Alexei Navalny. He died on 16 February in the Arctic prison where he was serving a ridiculous 19-year sentence for made-up offences. </span>\r\n\r\nhttps://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-02-22-when-the-ancs-closest-allies-killed-their-own-mandela-in-navalny-and-we-looked-away/\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All were either poisoned or shot — two of the favourite KGB execution methods. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a very Russian way of dealing with opposition: they can’t challenge Putin if they’re </span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">all dead</span></i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. And, of course, none of the candidates who had spoken up against the war was allowed on a ballot. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the years, Putin has grown so terrified of any opposition or the slightest rebellion against his corruption that even his most faithful supporters are now quickly eliminated. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Remember Yevgeny Prigozhin? That most loyal Putin ally, the head of the Wagner Group and a beloved Russian “war hero”, died in a plane crash with high-ranking Wagner commanders soon after it became evident that people, and more importantly, military personnel respected him and were ready to follow him. </span>\r\n<h4><b>Pro-Putin propaganda</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I saw a post on the first day of the election by Putin’s top propagandist, Olga Skabeeva. She took the tweet you see on this screenshot and only translated the top part of the text into Russian, completely changing the message. </span>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/image1_92b304/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2103184\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image1_92b304.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"805\" /></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The leading supplier of weapons to Russia, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has the same sort of elections: the founding and ruling Workers’ Party of Korea holds 87.5% of the seats in the Supreme People’s Assembly — neck and neck with Putin’s share of the vote.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As for the terrorism that took place in the occupied territories — unfortunately, we’ve seen it all before. Their main goal, as always, is to threaten people into compliance. Casting a vote while a fully armed soldier is standing a metre away — that’s true democracy, Russian-style! </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world on the right side of history, those who are standing with us against this evil, will never recognise Russia’s “elections” in the occupied territories of Ukraine. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“The EU will never recognise them. Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk are all Ukraine. All those involved will be held to account,” said the spokesperson of the European Commission, Peter Stano. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As for the Russian citizens... </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve seen images of a handful of people setting the voting booths and ballot boxes on fire and we’ve read reports of people pouring green dye into the ballot boxes. Only a handful, though. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russian citizens, the ones who believe Putin and his henchmen, will get a sobering reality check one day, and the world will become a very dark place for them. Their thinking that they are “protecting” their territory by attacking a neighbouring country will be altered once the reality sinks in. </span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have chosen, despite the widespread acknowledgement of falsehoods and corruption, to maintain a facade of normalcy. They aren’t victims, they are willingly participating in the genocide of our nation. They are willingly protecting and supporting their murderous dictator. </span><b>DM</b>",
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