Putin met soldiers' mothers today. Here's Vladimir, patiently listening. He wants to hear what ordinary people have to say. Except it turns out these mothers are not so ordinary...

@NEXTA points out that one of these mothers even seems to have a special outfit just for meeting Putin. Because she seems to meet him on the regular.

Here's another super regular mom meeting lovely Vladimir. Just another ordinary hockey mom who also happens to be the head of the "For Russia People's Front," a state-linked 'activist' group.

This is all part of a wider process of inviting military wives and mothers to share their patriotism and support for the war. There will be ritual tears and fears on display. oboz.info/samarskij-proe…

Putin will promise to save a son or look into bad conditions at the front. Viewers will learn, as they always do from Putin's encounters with the public, that the president cares. The tsar is good.

Of course, Putin will proceed to do absolutely nothing to help. The stories of individual suffering will slip into the morass of stage-managed patriotic support, as they always do. istories.media/en/reportages/…

People have asked me since day one of the war: what happens when the bodies start coming back? When mothers start crying on TV? Here's the answer: Nothing. Not for years. Not until the mass of corpses is so high that it's unavoidable. The state will PR its way out of the crisis.

Let's make this clear: if Putin gave even one single tiny fuck about Russian soldiers and their mothers, he could end the fighting this instant.

lololol when you dm me to tell me to tone my language down. fuck off.