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Russia Turns Its War Crimes into a Video Game, and Yes, It’s as Cringe as It Sounds
So, it’s come to this.
Not satisfied with bombing hospitals, deporting children, or redefining “special military operation” as a 3-year-long televised war crime, the Kremlin has now decided to release… a video game.
A video game.
Introducing Squad 22: ZOV, Russia’s attempt to turn its invasion of Ukraine into a playable experience for the whole family, assuming your family enjoys rewriting history with a Ministry of Defense-approved narrative and graphics straight out of a 2004 Blockbuster Video budget bin.
And before we go full snark, and believe me, we will, I’ll admit, this isn’t entirely new. The US did something similar with America’s Army during the height of the War on Terror. That game, too, was government-backed and designed to recruit young people and subtly (or not-so-subtly) justify US military actions abroad.
Propaganda wears camo in every language. But Zov isn’t merely an American rah-rah wet dream; it’s a state-sponsored hallucination. The difference is that in America’s Army the game, we weren’t invading our democratic neighbor while denying it existed. That’s next week.
The Plot (Or: How to Gaslight in HD)
