Russians Oblivious To Growing Anger Over MH17

sky.com ^ | July 20, 2014 | Katie Stallard

[Tailgunner Joe]

On a busy street in central Moscow, a well-dressed man stands yelling at the crowd: "Don't you understand? There will be a war!"

All around him, people walk by, wholly uninterested. It's a hot summer's day, they're enjoying the sun.

Save for a couple of tourists taking pictures, no-one pays much attention at all.

The friend of a friend who saw this, posted the news on Facebook.

Someone responded with a cartoon of Homer Simpson holding a sign that says "The End is Near".

There are people here who are genuinely concerned about the direction Russia is heading under Vladimir Putin, but they are very much in the minority.

Anyone watching Russian state TV (from which, according to a Levada Centre poll, an estimated 94% of population get their news) would have little idea of the weight of the international outrage building against their leader and the threat of serious sanctions to come.

Instead, they will be treated to a rundown of the "10 questions Ukraine's government must answer", and clips of Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisting that any accusation of Russian involvement is "unfounded" and that he "hasn't heard anything truthful from Kiev for months".

This will not surprise viewers who have spent those months listening to condemnation of the "junta" in Kiev, which they have regularly been told is controlled by fascists.

The morning after the crash, some Russian newspapers didn't even cover it.

The official state newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta, decided the loss of 298 lives was not its top story, leading instead with an "exclusive investigation" into what Russians eat and drink, the fate of flight MH17 relegated to the bottom of the page.

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Do nothing or else WW3 breaks out seems to be the latest tune of Putinists. Russians can be easily fooled into quasi-nationalistic mumbo jumbo (and the shirtless is making use of it) but obviously neither ordinary folks, nor Russian leadership want to start a nuclear war.

Soviet Union/Russia has never attacked a strong opponent, they only invade and push around far smaller & weaker countries, once confronted with strong opposition, they back down, just like in case of Cuban crisis and many others. Besides, it's not a matter of any military pressure, real economic sanctions should be enough and anyone who thinks that Putin would use nukes once Russian entities are banned from financial markets, is really nuts. He would have to back off or else oligarchs would take him down. That's it.

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