Ukraine War, April 27, 2022 (II): SATIRE–Putin says, “If you try to interfere with this rape I’m carrying out, I’ll burn your house down”; Russia decries violation of its territorial integrity by Ukraine

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Posted By: James Rowles April 27, 2022

Putin, at the press conference after his meeting with Macron, used extremely crude language to tell Ukraine it just has to accept Putin’s position in the Minsk II negotiations.

“At one point, insisting that the Ukrainian government should be forced to implement provisions of the Minsk peace accords, Putin even quoted a line that features in an obscene song with allusions to rape and necrophilia: ‘Whether you like it or don’t like it, bear with it, my beauty,’ he said.”

–Ukraine Crisis, February 10, 2022: Putin compares Ukraine’s role in Minsk II negotiations to that of rape victim; Lavrov treats British foreign secretary Liz Truss with disdain

Dispatches

1) Javier G. Cuesta “Moscú amenaza con una “respuesta dura” si Occidente anima a Ucrania a atacar territorio ruso; El ‘número dos’ del Ministerio de Defensa británico ve legítimo que Kiev recurra a esta estrategia para paralizar la ofensiva del Kremlin, ” El País, el 28 de abril 2022 (13:22 EDT).

SATIRE

Where is our sense of the ludicrous, of the bathetic?

News sources report, matter-of-factly, that Russia and Putin or Lavrov are denouncing the fact that Ukraine carried out attacks within Russian territory.

Imagine a conversation between President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:

Putin: The Ukrainians are violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. How dare they do that!

Putin: Sergey, didn’t you tell me that would be a violation of the U.N. Charter?

Lavrov: Well, yes I think I did…Normally,…

Putin: Don’t give me any of that “Normally” crap, Sergey. Is it or isn’t it?

Lavrov: It is. Yes, sir, it is.

Putin: I thought so.

Putin: Now, Sergey, the other night we were talking about one of your legal “hypotheticals”. Well, I may have gone to law school, but fortunately my KGB training helped me overcome that brainwashing rather quickly.

Putin: Where was I? Oh, right, the other night we were talking about one of your legal “hypotheticals”.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if I am raping someone, and somebody comes up and grabs me and tries to stop me, isn’t he committing a battery against me, what they used to call a “battery” in the English common law? An unwanted touching, or more, is the concept I remember from my law school days.

So, if that guy interferes with my rape, and tries to pull me away, isn’t that an unwanted touching of me, and therefore a battery?

Lavrov: Well, Sir, it’s complicated…

Putin: SERGEY!!! Don’t give me any of that “it’s complicated” crap. Is it a battery against me? Or not?

Lavrov: Well, yes, it’s a battery against you all right, Sir.

Putin: Now let’s take the hypothetical one step further. If that guy interferes with my rape, and tries to drag me off “my beautiful one” and I then, after I’m finished with “my beautiful one”, I go and burn down the guy’s house, that’s self-defense, right?

Lavrov: Do you mean you interrupt your rape, and go and burn his house down, and then come back and finish your business with “my beautiful one”?

Putin: SERGEY!!! Let’s just say I finish my rape, and then go burn his house down.

Lavrov: That’s self-defense, all right, because you are defending yourself from this madman trying to pull you off of his wife. Self-defense. Yes sir, self-defense.

Putin: OK, Sergey, let’s take your hypothetical a little further.

If I am in the middle of my rape, and the husband is just thinking about pulling me off his wife, and I threaten him by saying if he tries to intervene in my business I will burn his house down, is that self-defense, too?

Lavrov: Well, yes, that would be a kind of anticipatory self-defense.

Putin: SERGEY!!! What have I told you about saying “kind of”?

Lavrov: Self-defense. Yes Sir, that would be self-defense.

Putin: Now, Sergey, let’s turn your hypothetical to a practical application.

If NATO even thinks about interfering with my “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, and I threaten them with nuclear war if they interfere, that would be self-defense, right?

Lavrov: Yes Sir. That would be a threat to act in self-defense, and if you launched the missiles, that would be an action taken in self-defense.

Putin: In accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Right, Sergey?

Lavrov: That’s right, Sir. Article 51. You have an excellent memory.

Putin: Now, Sergey, what can we do about Ukraine attacking targets in Russia? Violating our frontier. Violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.

Lavrov: It’s complicated.

Putin: SERGEY!!!
…

The Trenchant Observer

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About the Author

James Rowles
"The Trenchant Observer" is edited and published by James Rowles (aka "The Observer"), an author and international lawyer who has taught International Law, Human Rights, and Comparative Law at major U.S. universities, including Harvard, Brandeis, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Kansas. Dr. Rowles is a former staff attorney at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States OAS), in Wasington, D.C., , where he was in charge of Brazil, Haiti, Mexico and the United States, and also worked on complaints from and reports on other countries including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. As an international development expert, he has worked on Rule of Law, Human Rights, and Judicial Reform in a number of countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Russian Federation. In the private sector, Dr. Rowles has worked as an international attorney for a leading national law firm and major global companies, on joint ventures and other matters in a number of countries in Europe (including Russia and the Ukraine), throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Japan. The Trenchant Observer blog provides an unfiltered international perspective for news and opinion on current events, in their historical context, drawing on a daily review of leading German, French, Spanish and English newspapers as well as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and other American newspapers, and on sources in other countries relevant to issues being analyzed. Dr. Rowles speaks fluent English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, and also knows other languages. He holds an S.J.D. or Doctor of Juridical Science in International Law from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Law (J.D.) and a Master of the Science of Law (J.S.M.=LL.M.), from Stanford University. As an undergraduate, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree, also from Stanford, where he graduated “With Great Distinction” (summa cum laude) and received the James Birdsall Weter Prize for the best Senior Honors Thesis in History. In addition to having taught as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, Dr. Rowles has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs (CFIA). His fellowships include a Stanford Postdoctoral Fellowship in Law and Development, the Rómulo Gallegos Fellowship in International Human Rights awarded by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a Harvard MacArthur Fellowship in International Peace and Security. Beyond his articles in The Trenchant Observer, he is the author of two books and numerous scholarly articles on subjects of international and comparative law. Currently he is working on a manuscript drawing on some the best articles that have appeared in the blog.

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