"Bombing Voronezh" is originally an internet meme that later became a common phrase in connection with relevant political events in Russia in the 2010s.
"Bombing Voronezh" refers to the response of the Russian authorities to sanctions or other unfavorable actions by foreign countries, which harm the citizens of Russia and impede their interests.
In August 2008, right after the end of the war in Georgia, a post appeared on LiveJournal that reminded of a joke about the residents of Voronezh asking Putin to bomb Voronezh when they learned that the government had decided to rebuild Tskhinvali.
According to one version (which has not yet been confirmed), one of the city deputies then said, "The amount allocated for South Ossetia is three times greater than the entire Voronezh region receives in three years. It would be better to bomb Voronezh, at least we could build decent roads."
On December 21, 2011, at the beginning of the civil war in Syria, a tweet appeared on Twitter:
«Putin: If NATO invades Syria, we will start bombing Voronezh.»
The original tweet has been deleted, but there are retweets from 2012.
Starting in 2013, with the introduction of sanctions by Western countries and Russia's retaliatory counter-sanctions, the meme took on a new meaning. There was a joke that in response to sanctions, the president ordered to bomb Voronezh.
The phrase became popular on the Russian Internet in early 2013 when the "Dima Yakovlev Law" was being discussed. Its opponents called it the "Law of Bastards." In response to the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials from the "Magnitsky List," the adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. citizens was prohibited.
The phrase was also used after the events of 2014 related to the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation when Western states began imposing sanctions to which the Kremlin responded with counter-sanctions, such as the Russian food embargo.
This phrase also became part of a popular joke that spread across the Russian Internet:
Lavrov calls Shoigu and says:
- Listen, Kuzhugyetovich, don't bomb New York, my daughter lives there.
Shogu, outraged:
- Damn! Peskov asked not to bomb London and Paris, Medvedev - Berlin, Mizulina - Belgium, Zhirinovsky - Switzerland... Others from our side have called too, the list is long. Lavrov, where should we bomb then in case of anything?
- Hmm, well, let's bomb Voronezh, there are definitely no ours there.
In 2018, the press service of the city administration stated that the meme is no longer popular on social networks and therefore "does not affect the investment climate in the capital of the Chernozemye".
At the same time, local authorities tried to promote the hashtag #IWantToBeInVoronezh on official resources, which social media users started to use ironically (for example, adding it to posts about the poor condition of local roads in the project "Rosyama. Voronezh").
According to a telephone sociological survey conducted among Russians in 2023, 0.8% of respondents associated the word "Voronezh" with the phrase "Bomb Voronezh"; more than a third of those surveyed (36%) gave scattered answers related to their own lives, while nearly half (49.1%) had difficulty answering.
In May 2023, State Duma deputy Andrey Gurulyov said on the "Solovyov.Live" TV show that aviation should "deal with Shebekino with planning bombs."
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for me personally, this meme reminds of old classic RyTP vid of live broadcast with the president. There an interviewer asks:
- What other enemies of Russia will be hit by our Aerospace Forces? Maybe… Voronezh?
and Putin answers:
- Certainly.
here is a the full video: no eng subs there, sorry: [https://youtu.be/XvJ1TCkzLMI] https://nostr.build/av/d5cc5ca783fff11f72e95de71636abaf96284273f4df6d7d0506aa52e4665836.mov
