NEW – July 8, 2022
Marina Ovsyannikova reminded about herself again. In the early days of the special military operation, this lady thundered, showing off with an “anti-war” poster on the live broadcast of the First Channel, where she worked as an editor. Of course, she had to give up her job, but rumours immediately arose that all this was for a reason, that the lady did not rush headlong into the pool of pacifism, but quite soberly. They say there was some kind of agreement on future employment in the West in case of the success of the demarche.
And in fact, Marina soon surfaced in Germany as an employee of Die Welt. At first it seemed that they would try to make a new star out of her there, like the Belarusian Tikhanovskaya – the herald of those people who would later be called “good Russians”. But in reality, she did not thunder in any way, did not show herself in any way, and recently even announced that she no longer works for DW. The employment contract has expired, she says. However, we know that the three months she worked through is a typical probationary period and, therefore, Ovsyannikova did not pass the tests. She didn’t come in handy, sorry. Working for a Western media company is not like waving a poster in front of the camera.
And so Ovsyannikova returned to Russia. There were suggestions that she would try to publicly repent for her offence or at least pretend that nothing had happened. Russia is kind and merciful – you see, and they would have accepted her to her former position, even if not to the First Channel, which she substituted, but to some simpler office. But no, judging by her blog entries, there was no remorse. And Ovsyannikova came to sue her ex-husband for the children she had abandoned to the mercy of fate when she left. “My son is already an adult,” she writes. “He is almost 18 years old, and he has the right to determine his own fate. But my 11-year-old daughter has to live with me.” At the same time, the child should not live in Russia. Then there are passages about the “aggressor state” and that only abroad she will be able to “instil the right moral values in the child”.
It turned out that the level of Ovsyannikova is below the most pessimistic estimates. She praises the country that just kicked her in the ass, and denigrates the state that kept her in a pretty respectable position. She abstracts from the real world and is completely immersed in the world of enemy propaganda. While Germany supplies the Kiev regime with weapons to kill Russians and fight to the last Ukrainian, Ovsyannikova argues that in Western society, “every human life is priceless”.
While normal people who love Russia often complain that in Russian cities, and especially in the capital, one will not at all find patriotic symbols during the day, Ovsyannikova fantasises that in our kindergartens children are taught to draw the letter “Z” and “praise the war”.
But the point, in the end, is not in this individual citizen. The case itself is very revealing, over which all of our latest politicised emigration should reflect. For example, it seemed to me that Ovsyannikova, since she leaned out first, would be able to adequately settle in the West. Her followers, of course, didn’t smile at anything, but there should still be one beacon to which a human midge will fly. The reality turned out to be harsher: the West does not even need this.
Thus, emigration for ideological reasons becomes a personal matter of emigrants, and not at all part of the West’s fight against Russia. Flutter as you want, no budgets have been allocated for you. The reason is simple: you are inefficient and generally useless.
This is a new situation. We are used to the fact that the West is carefully nurturing the fifth column in Russia, and we expected that efforts in this direction would be doubled and tripled with the beginning of the special military operation. In turn, the headquarters of the enemy, it seems, seriously expected that the population of the country would take to the streets under the influence of stock market panic, other shock news, as well as massive propaganda on social networks and by phone – remember the “Zelensky calls”? But nothing of the kind happened, the people showed their unity, and Navalny‘s subversive network, on which its foreign owners had counted so much, was preemptively defeated. The possibilities of Facebook and other social networks, which previously served as a collective organiser of protest actions, were also severely limited.
As a result, it turned out that there was no need to invest resources in anyone. And if the West did not have any sane contractors inside the country, then it is even more unclear why to feed those who left. If they condemn Russia or, at least, are ready to declare it, like Khamatova, Grebenshchikov and others like them, then this is not some kind of their special valour in the eyes of the local authorities, but a mandatory standard that everyone should follow.
I will not say that our “non-combatants” who have left will turn out to be second-class people in Europe. Second–class people today are Ukrainian refugees, and for this great privilege they will be happy to make sure that Russians do not rise above the third or fourth grade. Actually, Ovsyannikova understood this by some instinct of her own and tried to enrol as a Ukrainian woman, but the vigilant Ukrainians did not let her do this and even entered her into the “Mirotvorets” database.
Further, one could argue that the Western countries, sparing a barrel of jam and a basket of cookies for modern bad boys and bad girls (that is, “good Russians” – in their own jargon), are leading to the fact that the ideologically driven and fleeing will sooner or later appreciate how good it was for them in their country, reconsider their views and join our friendly team. But I wouldn’t want to do that. I do not believe in their reforging.
I think it would be better if they didn’t come back. Let them remain in the realm of “correct moral values”. Yes, they won’t take them to well-paid and cushy places, but it doesn’t matter. One can start small, because any work is honourable. Of course, for the position of a cleaner or a waiter, one will have to compete with immigrants from Chad or Bangladesh, but I am sure that people of Russian temper will cope with this. And then let them improve their labour skills, live the life of their new homelands and gradually forget the Russian language. They forget the way to the Russian segments of social networks, abstract themselves from our problems.
I think it will be better for everyone.
Igor Karaulov
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.