Argo Ideon: Drinking milk won't protect you against Moscow's official worldview
Russian official Nikolai Patrushev, in an interview, claimed that Europe is destroying Slavic populations through Ukrainian neo-Nazis and aiming to create a Fourth Reich, while warning Baltic states of consequences if they continue to "pull the whiskers of a cat with nuclear claws".
Estonian journalist Argo Ideon has commented on an interview with Russian official Nikolai Patrushev published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta under the title "When War Is at the Door." Patrushev, a former head of the FSB and currently an aide to Vladimir Putin, asserts that European support for Ukraine stems from the same historical anti-Russian sentiment that was expressed in the national composition of Nazi Germany's Waffen-SS units during World War II.
Patrushev claims that Europe is consciously participating in the destruction of Slavic populations, this time at the hands of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, and is essentially trying to turn the European Union into a Fourth Reich. He also offers advice to the Baltic states, citing Finnish Marshal Mannerheim and Romanian King Michael I as leaders who stopped fighting the Soviet Union. "Modern Europeans should at least learn some common sense from them," Patrushev says.
He pays particular attention to Lithuania, alleging that its politicians want to attack Kaliningrad. "It is clear that Lithuanian politicians want to push all of Europe into this adventure. But surely they must understand that in the event of aggression, Lithuania's peaceful and carefree life and its sovereignty would be the first to end," Patrushev warns. He also cautions against Brussels, which he claims wants to create colonies in the region, and against the English, whom he calls the founders of racism.
Ideon notes the contradictions in Patrushev's statements, pointing out that Russian propaganda frequently uses the term "трибалтийские вымираты" (dying-out Baltic peoples), as employed by former president Dmitry Medvedev. Such rhetoric suggests that Moscow does not consider Baltic peoples as equal partners. Ideon concludes that the best protection against such verbal nonsense is a sense of humor, armed with stubborn Estonian sarcasm.
