Rumor has it that last week, the deputies of the State Duma practiced an emergency evacuation at two in the morning at a Moscow metro station (which, as everyone knows, is itself a nuclear bunker connected to a hundred other bunkers). Eyewitnesses claim that Putin's motorcade also sped into the city center at the same ungodly hour—perhaps to rehearse the aftermath of a nuclear attack with the deputies? These are just rumors, of course, but they're unsettling precisely because they resemble the truth. Maybe it's just a team-building exercise for them, but it could also be a drill for coordinated action in case of the Apocalypse.

Meanwhile, to more vividly mark Air Defense Day, an S-300 missile defense system is being deployed in front of the Russian Army Theater. In Odintsovo, a launch system for intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, "Topol," arrives for the same bright celebration. The residents are in a panic: has it really begun?

It has begun, citizens. It has begun! And judging by how everything is set in motion, it didn't start today or yesterday.

All our wise leadership—the Party, the Government, and the President—have all taken refuge in the bunker. They've descended to a hundred-meter depth, sealed the hatches, opened the canned goods from the State Reserve, poured themselves some cognac, and started surveying the surroundings through a periscope. And back to the surface, I think, they have no intention of going. Because, as we know, a war is being waged against our Motherland. Our Motherland is encircled by enemies. They are trying to strangle us! crush us! terrorize us! dismember us! and—destroy us! The leadership has nowhere to go: above them is Moscow. And no one intends to surrender. They'll stay as long as the canned goods last. War is war.

Yes, yes. It is her. Pa-ra-no-ia.

With paranoia, it also seems like you're in monstrous danger. That you're being threatened. That you're the target of an extremely cunning and treacherous conspiracy. And most importantly—that you are right, and you are the only sane person, while everyone around is either mistaken or simply recruited by the Enemy.

And this is exactly the picture of the UN General Assembly meeting on Crimea and Ukraine. Thank goodness our representatives weren't carried out of there in straitjackets. The diagnosis is clear to everyone except us.

Consider this. Russia rattles nuclear missiles on Red Square every May 9th, Russia refuses to believe that World War II ended long ago, Russia desperately searches for fascists in all its former republics, Russia takes World War II and resumes it—by attacking Ukraine and annexing Crimea, so that—attention—it doesn't fall to the Nazis! After this, Russia introduces its "militias"—that is, supposedly kind bearded partisans from the tons of films being shot in Russia about the Great Patriotic War—into the essentially Soviet Donbass, to supposedly protect it from "Banderites" and "punishers" from the same endless Cinema. Russia, slightly heating up the already tense situation, promises to turn the West into radioactive ash, buzzes nuclear bombers over the West's ears, and the Russian President straightforwardly declares to the Federal Assembly: Hitler tried to break us up—it didn't work! And the West—it won't work either!

Excuse me, what?

The West, of course, sent two Polish ministers, a European commissioner, and the CIA director to Maidan, but as for sponsoring Ukrainian fascism—no: we don't have money for that, we're very sorry; and the West isn't ready to supply it with weapons either: maybe instead of weapons, you'd like almost unused camouflage or binoculars?

In short, the War to Destroy Russia is visible only from Russia. And only from the Bunker. From that very Bunker, where they've all crammed in, and from which they look out at the rest of the world with bitterness, suspicion, and savagery.

From there, they broadcast, spitting into microphones, about a siege, a clash of civilizations, strangulation, dismemberment; there they invent that the West is rotting and collapsing. Invent? No, they invented it long ago. In that very Bunker. And today's propagandists just took the old dusty manuals off the shelves, left by the previous masters of the Bunker. Our armored train was never switched to a siding. They just ordered a rebranding from a Belgian agency and painted it more brightly—for camouflage as peaceful life.

It turns out you can take people out of the Bunker, but you can't take the Bunker out of people. In the Bunker, our leadership finds things clearer and cozier. And—most unpleasantly—the Bunker is dearer than the above-ground world to almost every Russian person, whether they're Tatar or Chuvash. According to polls, 86 percent wouldn't leave it. And at the first alarm signal, these 86 percent would gladly rush back. Home. That's the main outcome of the outgoing year.

Everyone is now stockpiling grains, everyone is fighting in the TV trenches of TeleDonbass, everyone sings "If only there were no war" and everyone grimly whispers: "And if there were." An invisible frontline runs through 86 out of 100 hearts.

One thing these 86 percent forget: if there's a war tomorrow, if we march tomorrow, there won't be enough room in the real Bunker for everyone. The canned goods are prepared only for the leadership.