Nuclear Strike on a Fake Pentagon: Pathopsychology of Kremlin Propaganda

State Duma Deputy Mikhail Sheremet, November 2025:

"I believe that Russia has played too long at being a peacemaker in its fruitless search for compromise with the aggressive West, which means it's high time to build fake Pentagon, Big Ben, and Eiffel Tower structures for conducting tests by delivering a devastating retaliatory nuclear strike against magnificent targets."

This proposal is not a random adventure by an individual politician, but the logical conclusion of decades of development of a specific psychological pattern that has transformed Russian state propaganda into a clinical case of collective psychosis. From burning apples and crushing cheese with tractors to building a cardboard Reichstag for repeated "capture" — this is not merely absurd, it is a system of reality substitutes that has become the primary tool for managing the masses.

Genealogy of Absurdity: From Cheese to Simulacra

2014-2015: Birth of the Ritual

The response to Western sanctions became the first large-scale act of magical thinking: instead of economic planning — public destruction of products. Tractors crushed European cheeses, burned Polish apples, buried Spanish peaches. Economic irrationality (destroying scarce products amid rising prices) was compensated by symbolic "victory" over the West.

Psychological function: Displacement of helplessness before real economic problems through demonstration of control over symbols. Freudian displacement in its pure form — inability to punish sanctioners transforms into aggression against their goods.

2020: Burning Reichstag-2

The "Patriot" military-patriotic park near Moscow builds a full-scale replica of the Reichstag specifically to "storm" it annually on May 9th. Architectural accuracy of the imitation, "German" costumes, pyrotechnics — everything so the audience can endlessly relive the "Great Victory."

Psychological function: Traumatic fixation on the single moment of triumph in history. Jungian ego inflation — a people who cannot create new achievements gets stuck in ritual reproduction of the ancient. This is cargo cult in architecture: if you build a Reichstag replica and "take" it, you'll win again.

2025: Fake Pentagon as Logical Finale

Sheremet's proposal is the culmination of substitute logic. If real targets are unattainable (and striking them would mean suicide), create cardboard ones and "defeat" them. Against the backdrop of mythical "Burevestnik" missiles that don't work and constant threats to "strike" that never materialize — a fake Pentagon becomes the perfect object for a "nuclear strike."

Theoretical Framework: From Freud to Baudrillard

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Sigmund Freud would describe this as classic regression to the anal stage of development — the phase when a child derives pleasure from controlling destructive processes. Inability for constructive activity is compensated by destructive acts. Burning apples, destroying the Reichstag, "bombing" cardboard — this is fixation on destruction as the only available way to feel one's own power.

Carl Jung would see here ego inflation — pathological identification with the archetype of omnipotence. When the ego identifies itself with the Hero or Conqueror archetype without real grounds, detachment from reality occurs. Rituals of "victory" over fake objects become a way to maintain this grandiose illusion.

Jacques Lacan would speak of foreclosure — rejection of traumatic reality that then returns in the form of hallucinations. The impossibility of acknowledging one's own weakness is repressed, and instead a parallel reality of "victories" over cardboard enemies is created.

Philosophy of Simulation

Jean Baudrillard created the ideal concept for this — the theory of simulacra:

1. First order: copy reflects reality (photo of Reichstag 1945)
2. Second order: copy masks absence of reality (ceremonial military shows)
3. Third order: copy has no relation to reality, it creates its own hyperreality

The fake Pentagon is a third-order simulacrum. It doesn't reflect the real Pentagon, doesn't mask the impossibility of attacking it. It exists in an autonomous world of simulations, where a "strike" on cardboard = "intimidation" of the West in the imagination of those living inside this hyperreality.

Baudrillard wrote about the Gulf War: "The war did not take place" — it became a television simulation. Russia goes further: it creates a war that doesn't exist with an enemy that doesn't exist (cardboard Pentagon) for a victory that is impossible.

Totalitarian Psychology

Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" showed: totalitarian propaganda doesn't try to convince with rational arguments. It creates alternative reality through endless repetition of absurdity.

When you storm a fake Reichstag for the hundredth time, watch the burning of "enemy" products for the thousandth time, encounter the tenth threats of "nuclear strike" — the boundary between symbol and reality dissolves. This is not a system error, this is its goal: to dissolve the ability to distinguish real from imaginary.

Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer" explained: mass movements give a sense of power to those who are individually powerless. Burning cardboard enemies is liturgy for masses who feel their own helplessness before the real world. Ritual compensates for powerlessness.

Clinical Diagnosis: State in Psychosis

Delusional Disorder of Grandeur

Classic triad:

• Overestimation of own capabilities: threats with "Burevestnik" missiles that don't exist
• Underestimation of real threats: denial of military losses, economic problems
• Creation of alternative reality: "victories" over fake objects as compensation for real defeats

Magical Thinking at State Level

Anthropologist James Frazer described magical thinking of primitive cultures: belief that ritual action on an image affects the object (voodoo, effigies). Russia reproduces this primitive at technological level: if you bomb a cardboard Pentagon on television, the real West will "cool down."

Cargo Cult Syndrome

After World War II, inhabitants of Pacific islands built replicas of airplanes and runways from wood and straw, hoping that "gods" would again bring cargo. The fake Pentagon is the same cargo cult: if you reproduce the form of might (nuclear strike), real power will come.

Social Function of Absurdity

For the Regime

1. Distraction from reality: Instead of solving economic problems — theatrical "victories"
2. Control through absurdity: When the population accepts burning apples as "response to enemy," it's ready to accept any irrationality
3. Loyalty test: Ability to publicly support obvious absurdity — proof of submission

For the Population

1. Psychological defense: Better to live in a world where "we're defeating cardboard" than admit real defeat
2. Ritual of unity: Collective watching of Reichstag burning creates illusion of community
3. Compensation for powerlessness: "We shot down their apples from the sky" sounds better than "we have no money for food"

Schizophrenic Split: Knowledge vs. Faith

The most terrifying thing in this system is double consciousness. Sheremet proposes building a fake Pentagon, meaning he KNOWS the real one is unattainable. But he proposes bombing the copy as if it would affect the original. This is classic schizophrenic logic: simultaneous holding of incompatible pictures of reality.

Citizens who applaud the burning of imported cheese KNOW that cheese isn't guilty of sanctions. But they BELIEVE its destruction is a "strike against the West." This ability to believe what contradicts knowledge is the main product of totalitarian propaganda.

Comparative Historical Perspective

Nazi Germany

Goebbels also created simulations — fake reports of victories when Berlin was already being bombed. But even the Nazis didn't reach ritual destruction of fake enemy capitals. They lied about reality but didn't replace reality with cardboard.

North Korea

North Korea creates show villages on the border, fake stores for tourists, stages prosperity. But even they don't bombard models of the White House. Russia has invented a new level: not just lying about reality, but ritual destruction of simulation as a form of "policy."

Soviet Union

The USSR created Potemkin villages, falsified statistics, staged show trials. But this was concealment of reality. Putin's Russia is different: it publicly demonstrates replacement of reality with simulation and demands belief in it.

Prognosis: Escalation of Absurdity

If the logic of substitutes continues:

1. Fake NATO cities for "liberation" by Russian army
2. Cardboard aircraft carriers for "sinking" on television
3. Actors in roles of Western leaders for "execution" in squares
4. Virtual reality "victories" for mass consumption

This is not science fiction — this is extrapolation of existing trend. Each next step seems more absurd than the previous, but the system is consistent: when reality is unattainable, create its imitation and "defeat" it endlessly.

Conclusion: Therapy Through Catastrophe

Sheremet proposes not a military strategy — he proposes psychotherapy through magical ritual for a society that cannot cope with its own powerlessness. The fake Pentagon is not a weapon, it's a ritual object for collective catharsis.

The problem is that magical thinking doesn't heal trauma — it deepens it. Each "destruction" of cardboard distances from reality, makes collision with it more painful. When society lives in a world of simulacra, return to reality becomes not just difficult — it becomes impossible without destroying the entire system of meanings.

Therefore, the fake Pentagon is not a threat to the West. It is a symptom of the terminal stage of totalitarian psychosis, when the state has finally lost the ability to distinguish real from imaginary. And most terrifying — it purposefully forms the same inability in its population.

Freud would have died from shock seeing this. Baudrillard would have smiled: "I told you — hyperreality will win." Arendt would have sighed: "Again..."

When you see a deputy seriously proposing to bomb cardboard to intimidate superpowers, you understand: the problem isn't lack of weapons. The problem is lack of reality.