Just when you thought Putin’s regime couldn’t sink any lower, it somehow manages to. Like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov declared that, actually, the Kremlin’s bloody war in Ukraine had had a ‘positive impact on life inside [Russia]’.

Speaking at a foreign ministry press conference, Lavrov said this was because Putin’s ‘special military operation’ had united the country and ‘enabled it to be cleansed of all those who felt no sense of belonging to Russian history or culture’ after thousands moved abroad in opposition to the war. It hardly needs saying that the nearly 20,000 Russians detained for protesting against the war, and the families of the roughly 300,000 Russian soldiers believed to have been killed and injured so far, would disagree that the Russia of today is a better place.

Lavrov carried on, declaring that the war had ‘united the majority of society like never before!’ Quoting the writer and satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky, he said: ‘Among his brilliant sketches was this one…he had a monologue on the theme of Soviet/Russian society. And he said the following: “For our people to truly unite, they need a big war”.’ Lavrov acknowledged that Zhvanetsky had said this jokingly, but then added ‘in every joke there is an element of truth’.

The inconvenient truth Lavrov left out was that although Zhvanetsky, who died in 2020 aged 86, worked mostly in Russia, he was born and raised in Ukraine. He had voiced criticism of Putin’s war in Chechnya in 1996 and wrote an open letter in defence of the anti-Putin rock band Pussy Riot. Tellingly, following the invasion of Crimea, the Ukrainian government added Zhvanetsky to a so-called ‘white list’ of artists who supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine and opposed the invasion of the Donbass by Putin’s forces. Something tells Mr S he wouldn’t be too thrilled at being mentioned by Lavrov today.

This won’t be the last time that Lavrov, or another of Putin’s stooges tries to paint Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a positive light.

A translation of Lavrov’s words in full:

For a long time now, the special military operation has been having a positive impact on life in our country. The special military operation has united our society like never before and enabled it to be cleansed of all those who felt no sense of belonging to Russian history or culture. Some of them left the country, some of them stayed and thought of leaving, but the majority of society united like never before! You know, we had a great satirist, Mikhail Zhvanetsky. He’s unfortunately no longer with us, but among his brilliant sketches was this one. It was a very long time ago, maybe 20 or 30 years ago when he said it. He was doing a monologue on the theme of Soviet/Russian society. And he said the following: ‘For our people to truly unite, they need a big war’. He seemed to be saying it as a joke. But in every joke there is an element of truth.