Russian Soldiers Were Hitting Up Ukrainian Women on Tinder Prior to the Invasion
Uncredited. Shutterstock Images.Today is yet another day among far too many in the last few years that feel like we're living in a Tom Clancy novel. Crises of all kinds happening at once. Leadership in chaos. Economic hardship. Terror of the foreign, domestic and cyber varieties. A worldwide contagion killing millions. A U.S. puppet state collapsing into ruin. Our adversaries making power moves overseas. And now of course, that staple of the spy thriller genre, an actual war.
It's been said that if nothing else, the nuclear age has prevented global wars. Yes of course there have been superpower proxy wars in places like Korea and Vietnam. But no sovereign nation has been overrun by a foreign invader since the 1940s. We don't know what Russia's endgame in Ukraine is at the moment. Whether it will stop at taking over some territory or plan to conquer it altogether.
But it does seem at this point like this will be the first major armed conflict in the Western world since the dawn of the Social Media Age. So we can expect aspects of it that are as old as warfare itself being done like they've never been done before:
Source - RUSSIAN soldiers began bombarding Ukraine yesterday — with Tinder messages looking for love.
Ukrainian women in second city Kharkiv — just 20 miles from tyrannical Vladimir Putin’s vast invasion force — have been stunned by a salvo of admirers in uniform.
Hunky Russian troops called Andrei, Alexander, Gregory, Michail and a bearded Chechen fighter nicknamed “Black” were among dozens whose profiles popped up. …
Dasha Synelnikova’s phone lit up with snaps of dozens of randy Russians when she set her location to Kharkiv on Tinder yesterday. …
Video producer Dasha, 33, told The Sun last night: “I actually live in Kyiv but changed my location settings to Kharkiv after a friend told me there were Russian troops all over Tinder.
“And I couldn’t believe my eyes when they popped up trying to look tough and cool.
“One muscular guy posed up trying to look sexy in bed posing with his pistol." …
Dasha swapped messages with 31-year-old Andrei — who posed clutching his Kalashnikov rifle in full combat gear and helmet. …
Dasha said: “These guys are just the same as anyone else on Tinder — they want love or companionship."
I can't stress it enough when I say that I'm trying not to be trite about this. Two armies are doing battle and, as is never not the case, innocent people are being killed. But maybe there's some hope in this idea that the young people who are always sent in to do all the killing and most of the dying, have been trying to hook up with each other instead of shed rivers of blood.
Call me naive, but maybe Tinder is the modern equivalent of the Allied soldiers rolling across Europe trading their Red Cross packages for nylons and the nylons for sex. As opposed to the horrifying, widespread sexual atrocities that were among the most common weapons used in places like Nanking and the Eastern Front.
Perhaps newer social media like Tinder and TikTok offer the 20-somethings they were created for a chance to connect with one another and realize how futile all this is and reduce the hostilities. I mean, after all, new technologies have always impacted how we view war. From graphic photos of the dead during the American Civil War until today. A major reason the US finally got out of the war in Vietnam is because the images they were seeing on the news while they were having dinner were telling a totally different story than the one they were hearing from the government.
But that's probably just wishful thinking. As unlikely as Russian soldiers lined up along the border of a country they're about to invade thinking they could enjoy a quick hookup with Dasha Synelnikova and then get back to their post to await the order to attack. Still, she has a point when she says they're just looking for "love or companionship" just like everyone else. You can say she's a dreamer; but she's not the only one.
Peace, everybody.