“The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.”
That was the title of a Sixties Cold War smash-hit comedy movie.
It is in regards to the fictional grounding of a Russian (Soviet) submarine off Gloucester Island, inhabitants 200, alongside the New England coast.
Chaos breaks out when the captain sends an armed nine-man crew ashore to hunt assist in liberating his vessel. The folks assume it’s an invasion.
After a lot comedy and confusion, peace and concord escape and the islanders and the Russians grow to be buddies.
And when the U.S. sends two F-101 Voodoo jets to bomb the departing Russians, the townsfolk take to the water and encompass the sub with their small boats. The jets, not eager to hurt fellow Americans, break off the assault to the cheers of the islanders and all people is comfortable.
It was solely a film a few mock “invasion,” but it surely received rave critiques and was even proven in Moscow.
Now the Russians are coming once more, and this time it isn’t so humorous. This time it’s for actual.
And they won’t be looking for sanctuary or asylum on Martha’s Vineyard, or any one other imaginary island off the coast of Massachusetts — the movie was shot in California. They’ll be coming throughout the open Mexican border like all people else on this planet is doing.
These are the untold variety of Russians who’re fleeing their nation due to Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine.
It is a pricey battle, and he’s shedding it, which accounts for his current bluster about unleashing tactical nuclear weapons, in addition to calling up 300,000 or extra younger males to struggle within the battle.
Ukraine to him is what Vietnam was to the United States, solely compressed in time to months slightly than years.
And like some younger Americans—rightly or wrongly—who fled to Canada to keep away from being drafted to struggle in an unpopular battle, so too are younger Russians abandoning Russia as to keep away from being despatched to struggle in Ukraine.
Also, just like the hundreds of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators who risked arrest protesting the Vietnam War, so too are Russian anti-war protestors being arrested and jailed in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
While hundreds of Russians have fled or are fleeing, it isn’t a straightforward factor to perform.
Russians looking for to keep away from being drafted to struggle are flying to solely 4 international locations that also have direct aircraft connections—Serbia, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. The value of a technique has soared. Still, 50,000 Russians have fled to Serbia for the reason that battle started.
Another 40,000 fled to neighboring Georgia, the place no visa is required. The day after Putin made his battle announcement, there was a six-mile again up of automobiles on the Georgia border made up of Russians looking for to get out.
Meanwhile, to the north, the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – closed their borders, as did Finland, saying they won’t grant asylum to Russians fleeing mobilization.
And to the southeast extra Russians are crossing into Mongolia.
If Joe Biden was as involved with border safety because the three tiny Baltic states and Finland are, the U.S. would have closed its southern border way back.
Instead, the nation is coping with the financial, social and political fallout from the inflow of two million immigrants who’ve crossed the southern border illegally, not to mention the hundreds of getaway criminals and terrorists who at the moment are roaming the nation.
But he’s not. Nor are the Democrats. To them unlawful immigrants are a political windfall who deserve free stuff, in addition to driver’s licenses and the appropriate to vote.
So, who wouldn’t need to break into America, particularly when there are not any enforceable legal guidelines stopping it. I’d come, too, if I weren’t already right here.
Not that the Russians haven’t already been coming throughout the border together with immigrants from world wide. They have, but it surely has solely been a trickle.
Now it is going to be a flood. The Russians Are Coming. This time to remain. And it certain beats Mongolia.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”