Moral...

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin, commenting on Britain's decision to expel Russian diplomats from the country, called it "immoral". This word now sits like a nail in my head, causing mental horror.

I try to imagine this Kamynin's face, mentally look into his pupils, trying to find at least there, in the hidden depths, traces of awkwardness. And I don't find it. This Kamynin would not have been a prominent representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry if he had been capable of experiencing embarrassment.

I understand that every profession has its own specifics. Diplomats exchange words, the meaning of which, I believe, is quite clear to them alone. And in relation to the decision of Britain, even disagreeing with the assessment of the Russian Foreign Ministry, I would easily accept the words “inadequate”, “erroneous”, “provoking tension” ... Words from the professional range.

But "immorality"! To talk in public about moral categories in politics is a thing that is allowed ... I don’t even know to whom. Because the people who served as an impeccable model for billions of earthlings - Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul - they were the ones who were embarrassed to rant on moral topics (obviously knowing that modesty is included in its formula and hypocrisy is not included).

But what is not allowed to Mahatma Gandhi is allowed to Putin's Foreign Ministry!

The feeling of spirituality and moral highness as something inherent in Russia is amusing when it comes to pure Slavophilism. It’s even pretty, perhaps (as a kind of religion) ... But when this feeling is transmitted by airborne droplets to administration workers, this must be urgently treated! For a neglected feeling of moral superiority at the state level in the absence of internal criticism (consider this a medical term) leads, as you know, to serious complications. Up to death for entire continents.

The list of states that considered themselves a model, and the world outside - subject to correction, alas, is too expressive ... In the twentieth century, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR were leading by a wide margin in this nomination. You are welcome, Vladimir Vladimirovich! (Since you have mastered English.)

... So, the British, who insist on the extradition of a person suspected of murdering a British citizen in Britain, and cool relations with the country that obviously harbors the killer (and, according to some sources, is related to this murder), the British are, therefore, immoral! And we, who have inherited half of Europe with polonium, through the mouth of a Foreign Ministry official, teach the basics of morality to these children of Albion who have lost their shame.

If this were only a form of diplomatic rudeness, it might not be so terrible. But there seems to be a certain euphoria in all this - euphoria that has long been climbing out of all state holes. It seems that we breathed free gas and we began to have massive hallucinations ...

In official documents circulating in the Kremlin, Russia's priority foreign policy goal is, in black and white, "the establishment of a new system of world order." Start and finish, as they say...

A talk show on Channel One asks Russians: “Should Russia become a leader in the struggle for a just world order?” - and two-thirds of the audience answer "yes."

Brothers, let's first learn how to flush the toilet, and then we'll start correcting the Universe, huh?

Let's lower the homicide rate by color and get a little behind Nigeria in terms of corruption. Let's get ourselves a president who doesn't lie to his face, and find money to treat children with leukemia, while spending billions on rockets and billions in PR estimates for the administration ...

Let's not make it public policy to hide hitmen.

Let's do at least some of this before taking the word "morality" in our mouths.