The biggest surprise of the current situation for me has been the rapid, no, instantaneous degradation of our media. Everyone who, just yesterday, was at least trying to pretend to be a journalist is now spewing propaganda; frenzied, primitive, malicious.

Our television is like a burst abscess, and the Gazeta and Lenta I once loved are now glassy-eyed, empty shells of their former selves. There is no journalism left in the country. People—ordinary, seemingly sane—have forgotten everything and lie, lie, lie! The made-up girls on Vesti and Channel One lie, the correspondents lie, the editors lie about small things, and the chief editors lie about big things.

How do they manage it, I wonder? After all, just two months ago, they were people like any other, weren't they? All those who today lie so desperately, so passionately—surely they couldn't have completely transformed in just a month.

It's known that a person forced by circumstances to lie and act dishonorably will do everything possible to avoid cognitive dissonance—and will gather information to justify themselves, to prove to themselves that they are not lying or acting dishonorably. Rational thinking has nothing to do with it: everything is decided by emotions. Liars and scoundrels cannot live considering themselves as such. So they convince themselves that their truth is the truth. That the liars are others. That they are simply defending themselves and their side. And therefore, they are right. Their position is vulnerable, fragile, and any support is crucial for these liars and scoundrels: they were, after all, raised to be good people, and now they find it hard. Any praise, any recognition is important to them.

And then we read: Vladimir Putin awarded more than three hundred journalists with orders for their "objective coverage of events in Crimea." And in Ukraine in general. Orders and medals for correspondents, hosts, showmen, chief editors... "Order of Alexander Nevsky," "For Merit to the Fatherland," and "Order of Honor." Fine, correspondents at least were ordered into the fray. But for what did Kulistikov and Solovyov get theirs?!

The first thought that comes to mind is that these are not work awards, but combat ones. After all, it's supposedly wartime, which means there are enemies on the other side, and thus the pen must be equated to the bayonet. In war, as in war.

And then you think: who started this war? Who invoked the Banderites and fascists, the UNA-UNSO, who stirred hysteria among Russian-speaking Ukrainians and Ukrainian Russians, who for six months told them about the Lviv massacre for breakfast and the Kharkiv hangings for lunch? Who turned the "Right Sector" from a bunch of marginal street thugs, who didn't even have a name before, into the central force of Ukrainian nationalism? And who, most importantly, pumped this nationalism with growth hormones, month after month pouring lies over all of Ukraine?

Now—yes, now there is war. Now there are dead on each side. Now there are neither right nor wrong. Now the anthill is set on fire, you can brush off your hands, step aside, and watch, taking a "neutral position."

So here's the thing: you guys made this happen. It was conceived in the Kremlin, but you made it happen. Each of you who didn't want to change jobs. Who feared a pay cut. Who simply didn't know how to object to the boss. Who convinced themselves they were right.

The "polite people"—the GRU special forces—maybe didn't kill anyone. But you did. It won't be easy for you to live with that. Better to lie to yourselves, as you lied to others. Better to get high and forget.

Your medals are not awards. It's Putin handing out morphine in syringes.

Celebrate today. And remember those you toast to.