Ukrainian farmer makes off with entire Russian Victory Day Parade
By W.E. Linde
MOSCOW — In the latest of a string of high-profile humiliations for the Russian military, a Ukrainian farmer was able to connect every single military vehicle participating in the country’s venerable Victory Day parade to his tractor and drag them back to Ukraine.
Petro Bonderenko, 53, a wheat and barley farmer from the village of Grushevka, appeared shortly after the parade began at 10 a.m., and somehow tied a chain that linked the approximately 200 military vehicles participating in this year’s event to his 210 horsepower John Deere tractor. Within 30 minutes, a confused silence had settled on Red Square, which was then completely devoid of any military armor or weapons.
“How did he even get there?” asked a visibly flummoxed Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff. “I was standing there in the reviewing stand saluting and suddenly saw some grizzled civilian in a crappy little tractor was in front of the procession, waving at me and President Putin.”
The “battlefield acquisition” became obvious to most when Bondarenko’s tractor made a sharp U-turn in front of Red Square, pulling the entire parade along behind him.
Sources indicate that although Putin was upset at the humiliating spectacle and initially demanded to know what was happening, his senior intelligence officials assured him that the parade was proceeding according to plan. Sufficiently reassured, Putin saluted Bonderenko as the farmer returned a one-finger salute.
David McSally, an analyst at Center for Strategic and International Studies, was not surprised that Bonderenko’s mission was successful.
“The Russians don’t trust their lower echelon troops, and so command and control is highly concentrated with senior leadership,” he explained. “So when no orders came down to stop this farmer, the troops in the vehicles just stayed along for the ride.”
“There’s also the likelihood that a lot of them were happy to go,” McSally added.
With the vehicle heist complete, talk has started about whether there will be consequences in the General Staff for letting Bonderenko get away.
“I don’t think President Putin is too mad,” Gerasimov said, sweating like he had just finished leveling an entire Ukrainian village by himself. “After all, he’s invited me to discuss this over tea later this afternoon.” He then fell to the ground, sobbing.
W.E. Linde (aka Major Crunch) writes a lot. Former military intelligence officer, amateur historian, blogger/writer at DamperThree.com. Strives to be a satirist, but probably just sarcastic. Twitter @welinde