By: Dr Janez Suša
In 2019 and 2020, I spent 4 months in Moscow as an internationally renowned designer, visiting Russian sewage treatment plants, sludge and waste treatment plants, oil industry plants and the like with Russian engineers. After many technical meetings, we always ended talking about politics while driving in a car. Without exception, everyone severely criticised Putin and his regime, looking for ways to leave Russia. I asked them if they were afraid to talk badly about Putin. The answer was that his power was so strong that he did not even pursue it. Either way, we can do nothing but whine and criticise. However, if we protested publicly, the Putin regime would immediately persecute us and imprison us: “Welcome to jail!” When Putin invaded Ukraine last week, I received the following message from one of Moscow’s engineers:
- 2. 22 13:42 – Russia: Dear Janez. I want you to know. I am very ashamed of Russia.
- 2. 22 21:59 – Janez Susa: This is terrible what Putin is doing. Nobody threatens Russia. Why attack Ukraine??
- 2. 22 09:07 – Russia: The man who stay in power so long time is losing reality. The worst thing is I can do nothing. If we are disagree, welcome to a jail. This is the North Korean way. I even can’t leave the country, my visa finished last year
The Russians are ashamed of Putin. However, due to the brutality of his regime, they do not dare and cannot do anything. If they protest the war in Ukraine, which we have now seen in many Russian cities, the police beat them en masse and imprison them in Putin’s prisons. “This is the North Korean way”. The Russian people perceive Putin as a crude despot who has been in power for so long that he has lost touch with reality. Russians hate Putin. But they are afraid of him. Anyone who dared to resist him was poisoned, killed, tortured, and imprisoned. The Russian worker is hungry. Wages are miserable, food in stores is poor and expensive. Only cigarettes and vodka are cheap. So, I phoned the owner of a factory in Germany whose machines were assembled by Russian workers to bring them a Christmas bonus. The man also did so, although his German firm paid the Russian assembly company everything and was not indebted to anything. He boarded a plane and flew to Moscow with money in his pocket. The workers did not believe him until they got the money in their hands, and then they could barely hold back tears of gratitude. It is so bad. Truly. Of course, the Russian assembly company did not know anything about it.
Just when I was in Moscow, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which had been controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church for 322 years, officially seceded from the Russian Orthodox Church. Horrible! On 9 Russian propaganda regime TV channels, hostile slurry poured non-stop across Ukraine and Ukrainians. Pure brainwashing. Even then, in 2019, Putin’s attack on Ukraine hung in the air.
In December 2019, I was invited to the Slovenian Embassy in Moscow to celebrate the Independence and Unity Day of the Republic of Slovenia. I was honoured and it was nice to hang out with my compatriots. However, I was disappointed with the ambassador’s speech. He said somewhat unscrupulously: “In 1990, Slovenia just decided to be independent, and now we are celebrating it!”. An ignorant young man was circulating among the guests, presumably from Erjavec’s economic diplomacy, blabbering on like nonsense that it was hard to listen to him. Later, on the occasion, I addressed the Slovenian military attaché that it seemed to me that Putin intended to attack Ukraine. He froze like an ice candle and told me vehemently that he should not talk about it at all because it is classified information. Well, now this is no longer secret information, but a harsh reality. I learned from the guests that there are about 120 Slovenes in Moscow, almost half of whom came to the reception at the embassy. There are about 3,000 of them in Berlin. Businessmen have not boasted about any big deals, at most, that they are struggling in the Russian market with serious problems, for survival. And for the famous Škrabec’s RIKO, they said that his business was just mafia shit. In Slovenia, the business of Kučan’s businessmen with Russia is inflating like a balloon, but in reality, this is scarce. In Moscow, you will search in vain for the once popular Kompas branch. There are not enough noble hotels for rich Russian tourists in Slovenia. There is no middle class in Russia. There are only super rich oligarchs and miserable persecuted paradises with no purchasing power.
In the solitude of a cold hotel room in Moscow in December 2019, I wondered, what is the difference between the Putin regime and the regime in Slovenia? Basically none. Except that in Slovenia, unlike Putin, despot Kučan is hiding in Murgle and operating from the background of a deep state. The government, state institutions, the court, the prosecutor’s office, the regime’s propaganda television: RTV, POPTV, and all that, are the same. Only with much more pretence and sacrilege. As in Putin’s Russia, opposition leader Janez Janša has been imprisoned in Slovenia. But since he became Prime Minister, Putin’s babies have constantly threatened him with death. And General State Prosecutor Drago Šketa went to Moscow for advice as a schoolboy, when the poor man failed to get Kangler in prison despite 24 charges.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is pure rejection. In recent history, it can only be compared to the insidious terrorist attack on the WTC skyscraper in New York in 2001. The bombing of Kharkov and Kiev is a heinous crime against humanity. Ukrainians will defend their homeland. It cannot be otherwise. The battle for a free Europe is being fought in Ukraine. Ukraine is not alone. A strong, unstoppable river of aid in arms and materials will flow from free Europe until the last Putin’s Wagner or Chechen Islamist mercenary leaves Ukraine. It is high time, Mr. Biden to send two aircraft carriers with all the escorts to the Black and Baltic Seas. Only for regular military exercises. And you call for a reward for Putin’s head, one dollar lower than for Osama bin Laden.
Slovenian Putin’s ass-kissers can also contribute something to a free Ukraine. Jankovič should find an old Mercator bag, in which decorations should be placed in Kučan’s home and returned to the Russian Embassy in Ljubljana. The suffering Ukrainian people will be grateful to you. The greatest builder of DSOs in the history of Slovenia, Anja Kopač, has already done so. The following is a lesson for Slovenian voters: if KUL-Cult, Uljan’s Lenin and/or Golob’s “Freedom Movement” wins, the Putin regime will be waiting for us in Slovenia again. Golob’s “freedom” is a movement for the free enrichment of the pigeon oligarch. The real battle for freedom is being fought in Ukraine today. In April, true freedom in Slovenia will be at stake. *
Dr Janez Suša is a patriot, a candidate for MP in the National Assembly