The crazy thing is, Vladimir Putin has less of a legitimate beef with Ukraine than Kanye West has with Peppa Pig.

Putin built up forces around Ukraine, surrounding it on three sides, without any real reason. Russia has been picking on Ukraine for years, annexing Crimea back in 2014. This current beef is over the future of Ukraine and Putin’s fears it’ll someday join NATO, which could block Putin’s access to the Black Sea. But, what Ukraine does with NATO is a matter of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Putin has placed about 190,000 troops on the Russian and Belarusian border with Ukraine. Then, Putin said he was going to pull his troops back. After saying he wouldn’t recognize two separatist regions in Ukraine, today he announced he’s recognizing them and is sending in “peacekeeping” troops. So much for pulling his troops back.

Rebels in Ukraine don’t control as much area in Ukraine as they claim belongs to them. The big question here is: Will Putin just send in peacekeeping troops to what they control or to all they claim? Also, a month or so ago, President Biden said any incursion into Ukraine will be seen as an invasion. So far, they’re not calling this incursion an invasion. This may also be Putin’s way of saving face.

Putin has sent a list of demands which include that Ukraine never becomes a member of NATO and that Nato removes any troops or weapons deployed to countries that entered the alliance after 1997, which would include Poland, the former Soviet countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries. He’s also demanding that NATO never hold drills in eastern Europe, Ukraine, Georgia, or central Asia. Putin also wants the restoration of a nuclear missile treaty that Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018. With none of these demands being met, Putin may try to save face by only occupying territory that’s already occupied by pro-Russian forces. A full invasion will bring harsh sanctions Russia can’t afford. Today, Germany declared the Russian-owned Nord Stream 2, a pipeline delivering Russian oil to western Europe through Germany, dead. Russia does not want to lose that money.

So what’s Kanye’s beef with Peppa?

Peppa has a better album than Kanye, according to someone somewhere. That has upset Kanye. But is that fair? Don’t a lot of people and farm animal cartoon characters have better albums than Kanye?

To be fair, I only know a tad more about Kanye than I do about Peppa Pig. I know Kanye was married to one of the Kardashians who is now dating Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson. I know Kanye is a rapper. I know Kanye loves Donald Trump and even got to visit the Oval Office. I know Kanye probably has some mental issues. I just found out Peppa Pig is British and female. I saw the movie “Snatch.” I do NOT want to go anywhere near any British pig farms. Thanks to that movie, I’m more afraid of British pigs and Gypsies than I am of Kanye.

Over the weekend, Kanye posted an enemies list which consisted of Apple, Spotify, Vivendi, Universal, Lucien Grange, Tik Tok, Black History Month, President Obama, the entire cast of SNL (not just the one sleeping with his wife), Hillary Clinton, the Devil, Corey Gamble, Jeff Bezos, Charlamagne, Disney, “Librals,” Skete, Wiz Khalifa, Jay-Z, Billie Eilish, Ray J, Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Kimmel, Harriet Tubman, Travis Scott, J. Cole, South Park, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, TMZ, American Music Awards, Beck, Drake, his wife, and Peppa Pig.

I know. The list has a lot more questions (Harriet Tubman?), but let’s focus on Peppa Pig. What’d Peppa Pig do to Kanye? Pitchfork, which is something that rates albums (God, I’m old) gave Kanye’s “Donda” album a 6.0 rating. It gave Peppa Pig’s soundtrack a 6.5 rating. Kanye hosted listening events in Chicago and Atlanta, which Ms. Pig noticed along with the Pitchfork ratings and tweeted, “Peppa didn’t need to host listening parties in Mercedes-Benz stadium to get that .5.”

Probably realizing it could start a new east coast/west coast feud, Peppa quickly deleted the tweet, but not before fans noticed that a cartoon British pig was throwing shade at Kanye, and not doing a half-bad job with it.

You don’t see Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky throwing shade at Vladimir Putin with tweets saying things like, “Yo, Pootie. Saw shirtless photo, Volody don’t need no bra.”

Putin and Kanye are both friends of Donald Trump. They’ve both had one-on-one meetings with the guy. Donald Trump has also met with both without bringing along a translator.

But if nothing else, Peppa Pig is the one who started the fight. So maybe my cartoon’s wrong. Maybe despite Kanye being a bully in the past (harassing Taylor Swift) and being a Trump fan like Putin, Peppa is the real bully here. Peppa wanna be starting something. Maybe Peppa and Putin could be possibly putting on a co-production of Peter Piper picking a peck of pickled pickles in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Couldn’t Putin just do what Kanye did? Make an enemies list and stop there? Trump has.

Music Note: I resumed listening to the White Stripes’ “Elephant” album while drawing this cartoon.

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