The Daily Wildcat • A5
News • Wednesday, October 18 - Tuesday, October 24, 2017
COMMENTARY
Putin, according to my Russian mom OPINION
BY TONI MARCHEVA @DailyWildcat
A
ll Vladimir Putin, Russian President, wants is a massive war where Russia can finally declare victory over the United States. Yes, this is a big claim for a 19-year-old student who knows little about the world. But it’s not my claim — it’s my mom’s. And FYI, that means it’s true. Recently, world news has felt like a lot of artificial escalation. President Donald Trump and Putin were friends not that long ago. Now, the Russian foreign ministry says U.S.-Russia relations are at their worst since the Cold War. North Korea’s missile program seemed to come out of nowhere, too. Its race for intercontinental ballistic missiles looks like it is desperate for protection. I’m pretty sure the U.S. didn’t threaten North Korea before it started building (nor even took it seriously). Though nothing here is a coincidence. To my mom, this is all just unfinished business bottled up since the Cold War “ended.” She said, “Putin is smart, but I see right through what he is doing.” Where do her magic Putin-reading powers come from? My mom gives a simple explanation: “It’s because I’m Russian, too.” Yes, for the first 20-some years of her life, she lived in a cold, passionless, alcoholic, food-scarce, America-hating, people-gomissing village, like most Soviet Russians did. And I’ll bet all of the little Vladimirs and little Marinkas got some form of training in evil genius at their elementary schools. In my mom’s clear perception of the world, she was able to tell that America was the better country to live in, so she escaped (illegally) and now lives in the U.S. to enlighten all of those who have fantasies about Russia on what’s really going on inside Mr. Putin’s head. Last time I went home, I visited the oracle and asked why Putin would support our president during the election if he hated America so much. Her answer: Vladimir Putin can influence a person like Donald Trump in a way he couldn’t influence Hillary Clinton. He needed a figure like President Trump in order to weaken America and topple the president. I stood looking at her wide-eyed, and my mom looked back with her “wasn’t that
obvious” face. When my family is all together, we enjoy watching and commenting on the news and different TV shows. We watched North Korea’s missile program escalate over the summer, and my mother was the first to cry “Soviet!” on the North Koreans. Before then, I never connected the two. North Korea’s missile program looks markedly Russian, from the technology we learned about months later and from the media surrounding it. I wondered what spurred North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un to start this missile program. My mom believes it’s not Kim but Putin, again, pushing all the right buttons. Kim is just the right person for Putin to work his agenda on and manipulate. Russia is pressing him to start a war with the U.S. so that Russia can hop on North Korea’s side and destroy the U.S. Putin can’t be the one to make the first blow, but he’ll definitely step out from behind it. But no, it doesn’t make sense! We’re a society of peace, and the Cold War is over! To that, my mom would briefly scoff at my American optimism and hit me with another row of undeniable facts. For example, if Putin is so interested in world peace, he wouldn’t be on all the wrong sides of world conflicts. He is the only major player on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s team in Syria, where over half of the population has fled, been displaced within the country or killed. Russian warplanes have targeted mosques, schools and markets. Russian weapons power Assad’s forces. If it weren’t for Putin’s disapproval, the United Nations Security Council probably could have at least passed a resolution critical of Assad. Putin also annexed Crimea in 2014, which hints at a Cold War sentiment of the “strength of Russia and Russianness.” These two events show that, despite Russia’s seeming extension of friendliness earlier this year, Putin’s agenda is much bigger than most people understand (except my mom). Maybe after all of the truth presented here, you still don’t buy into this representation of Putin’s aims. If you’re criticizing the opinion, to each their own. If you’re criticizing the source, you better hide. My mom can fight bears, and she can probably knock some sense into you too. — Toni Marcheva is a sophomore honors student majoring in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law
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