Look, this is magical.
There lived a Colonel Ivanov in Sverdlovsk Oblast (a region in Russia’s Urals). This is not some abstract, made-up surname.
A real colonel. Here is his Facebook profile. And here is the profile photo:
Ivanov was very fond of Putin. He belonged to the organization “Patriot.” He hated the “fifth column.” He went into the election to support Putin as part of the Rodina party, which called itself the “President’s special forces.”
During the election campaign, our colonel actively campaigned for the national leader:
And then the “election” happened. That very same “national leader” tossed the colonel and all his patriotism aside, just like all the other party members. He rubbed their faces in it and stuffed 11 million votes for his own United Russia party, taking from Colonel Ivanov even the faintest hope of ending up at the State Duma podium.
So Colonel Ivanov’s latest Facebook status looks like this:
“We will not forget, we will not forgive,” Colonel Ivanov writes to his national leader, accusing him of a crime for which the country will have to pay a terrible price. And he attaches a photograph you would never expect to see on the profile of a veteran colonel who hates “liberal traitors”:
That is how Colonel Ivanov came to understand that his “national leader” cannot steal selectively—money, votes, the future. The pockets of liberals and patriots, hipsters and workers, all look the same.