Stock Characters in a Long-Running Soap Opera

For several years my job was negotiating local ceasefires between the armed Russian bridge trolls unlawfully occupying the south bank of the river, and with the Ukrainian soldiers defending the northern shore. We whose fate it was to participate in the daily array of diabolical dramas staged there by Russian war lords became like stock characters in a long-running soap opera. The cast of players acting out roles in this tragicomedy included diplomats, mercenaries, traders, soldiers, Russian occupiers, spies, and ordinary folk just like you and me.

Source: Disinfolklore (1)

The author’s first-hand account of becoming a character in Russia’s staged spectacle. On the bridge in eastern Ukraine, diplomats, mercenaries, traders, soldiers, and ordinary people were reduced to “stock characters in a long-running soap opera” — playing roles scripted by Russian warlords in a tragicomedy whose plot they could never predict. The cast list itself reveals the spectacle’s reach: it conscripts everyone, from international diplomats to “ordinary folk just like you and me.”

← Previous: Genocidal Soap Opera of Bakhmut | Back to Spectacle | Next: Kvartal 95: Counter-Spectacle →