From 1932 to 1933, millions of Ukrainians died of starvation and disease in a Great Famine engineered by then-Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin. The Holodomor – named by combining the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor) – was only one example of the unholy atrocities that were inflicted upon the Soviet people by Stalin over his 31-year reign of terror.
The Holodomor was officially recognized as genocide by Ukraine and more than a dozen other nations in 2006.
Today, Ukraine is known as "the breadbasket of Europe," and its agricultural exports account for a significant portion of all of the calories consumed around the world. But Russian President Vladimir Putin's barbaric invasion of Ukraine and his military's indiscriminate slaughter of civilians is stoking fears that hunger could once again be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
Over the weekend, propagandists on Russian state television mused about cutting off Ukraine from its crops and exporting them to China.
"Ukraine's deal with the Chinese and the corn didn't come through," political scientist Dmitry Evstafiev said on Russia 1.
"If they need it, we'll supply them with Ukraine's corn," host Vladimir Solovyov interjected.
"Certainly, certainly, especially since we have every opportunity to do it," Evstafiev concurred. "Cutting off the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine from the Black Sea, from the croplands, from the breadbasket granary, this is the most dangerous thing, and the corn too."
The Kremlin's goons also fantasized about targeting farms in the United States as a means of strong-arming the Americans into capitulating to Putin's demands.
"And one more thing that is still ahead for us," Evstafiev continued, "we need to find the effective spots of vulnerability for Americans. We need to think, and not discuss it publicly, but we need to identify them and apply pressure to make that the last drop that will force the American elites to recognize that they need to negotiate with us. And that they need to negotiate with us on our terms and not on their terms."
Watch the translated version below courtesy of The Daily Beast's Russia expert and Russian Media Monitor founder Julia Davis:
Davis' followers immediately recognized what Russia is proposing.
One person noted that Putin's playbook eerily mirrors the plot of the television show that catapulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's rise to power.
Others, meanwhile, pointed out that Moscow is running out of options to sustain its disastrous operation in Ukraine.