People have a tendency to dream. Children can escape to a made-up world for hours on end. In there, everything is better than in reality. In that world, there are no grudges and misunderstandings, they are respected, all of their problems are solved.

Some adults also make up a fairy-tale world for themselves that is barely connected to reality. And they remain in it forever.

Indeed, the story of this terrible war is a story of ever-changing delusions.

First, the ones who preside over us decided to believe in their greatness and that they have a Mission. It was unclear in the beginning what the Mission was but eventually it became more concrete — they and the country they are ruling have to crush the power of the West and, most importantly, the US, and establish the new world order that is based on admitting that Russia is right all the time about everything. Third Rome, expanded version with added material.

It is Russia’s calling to restructure the world because it possesses unique, grand qualities that are hard to define — conciliarity, an extra chromosome, special kinds of goodness and generosity. Only very bad people, enemies of Russia, doubt this. The enemies do not love us, because they can feel our spiritual superiority (the spiritual one specifically, because when it comes to the material realm — the realm of fridges, cars, and electronics — things are not going so well, but our people do not have a need for these things, anyway). Furthermore, they are afraid of our breakthrough that has been announced as coming soon for several centuries now, so they hate us and want to put us on our knees.

Our enemies — the US and all the countries singing to the American tune — are weak, over-delicate, and cowardly. (The fact that, for example, their generals are able to run marathons at any age while ours are unable to see some parts of their own bodies because of the bellies covering their view does not hinder their opinions on Americans being coddled and us being made of steel).

This worldview previously led to complications in relations with all developed nations, to the archaisation of our country, to repressions. But not to a big war.

But then they got fixated on Ukraine. They did not favour Ukraine before, too, they tried to bring it back under their influence. But during the pandemic (because of the person number one’s self-isolation?) qualitative changes occurred.

Putin and possibly a part of his inner circle came to some unexpected conclusions. Ukrainians and Russians are the same nation, the Ukrainian language does not exist — it is just a variation of Russian. Actually, all of Ukraine is an artificial entity made up by Lenin. Probably on the instructions of the German General Staff, too. Which means that Ukraine should not exist, especially considering that it keeps acting more and more disrespectfully. And these ambiguous phantasms transform into the movement of troops and a big strike force centred on the Ukrainian border. But some still hoped that it would turn out to be just blackmail.

The invasion began because in the broken heads of our leaders an idea established itself — an idea that Ukrainians are bad at warfare and will not fight (the leaders forgot about the way Ukrainians fought in the Great Patriotic War and what role they later played in the Soviet army), that they are cowardly and will surrender, that even if someone foolishly gives Ukraine weapons, Ukrainians will resell them to our troops. And seeing as we are the same nation, they will be meeting our soldiers with flowers, as if they were liberators.

All of this racist nonsense did not just start getting repeated over and over before the beginning of the war — based on the decisions that were being made at the time, it fit the worldview of Russia’s top-level officials. The tank crews even brought ceremonial uniforms with them — getting ready to march across Kyiv. They were followed by riot police units, ready to swiftly arrest those bribed few who would be against this resounding victory. And Putin even called on the Ukrainian military to “take power in their own hands”.

But “something went wrong”, and changes occurred in their minds. The delusion in their heads went from happy and victorious to gloomy and depressed, but still remained far away from reality. They began to prepare for the Ukrainian invasion — building anti-tank barriers, checking the state of bomb shelters. Why the hell would Ukraine invade Russia — Zelensky is not Putin, he would not give such crazy orders. They started talking about The Hague (“We, of course, will not lose, but in case we do…”), started threatening, directly borrowing from the great Führer, that they would slam the door so loudly upon leaving that the entire world would feel it — we will start a nuclear war, just wait, there will be hell to pay for everyone.

They continue holding on to the myth of their power. They said that T-90s are better tanks than Leopards, that all arms being supplied to Ukraine will be destroyed (why have they not destroyed the previous supplies?). According to Putin, we will “snap” Patriot systems easily.

Let’s take the best tank in the world, the Armata. My opinion is that Rogozin built it from Legos, but the British intelligence assures us that it does exist, although it is not ready for combat. They do not know anymore what is and is not real. The only truth — hundreds of thousands killed, destroyed cities, millions of refugees, a world that is united against Russian aggression — does not interest them. They go on, repeating the chants about the inevitable victory over America and satanists, playing toy soldiers. The decisions they make have nothing to do with reality, they are about their delusions.

And here is the apotheosis — a Pantsir air defence system was put on the roof of the Ministry of Defence. Maybe when they find themselves in over their heads, it flies into their room and talks to them.