The real reason Putin is doing what he’s doing

| 3:00 pm EST February 25, 2022
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After all his talk to the contrary, Putin has attacked Ukraine. At the same time, we must deal with Donald Trump and his ilk praising Putin for his actions. If there is anyone out there who still refuses to believe Donald Trump is a traitor, they are seriously unwell. This is the United States of America. We do not put down our president while praising a brazen dictator. Newsweek reported that a representative of the State Department has addressed Trump’s traitorous comments with: “I have no words.” Neither do we.

According to Slate, Putin claimed to be conducting a “special military operation to protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraine’s Donbas region.” Putin protects only Putin; his ulterior motives are not fully clear. Slate believes that Putin seeks to overthrow the government in Ukraine. It is somewhat telling that after Putin’s press conference about the people of Donbas, his strikes have gone far beyond that area. Putin, like his friend Trump, uses lies to generate support. Putin claims the U.S. is helping Ukraine build nuclear weapons and compared the government to Nazis. Oh, come on. We all know he started puffing his chest because they wanted to join NATO. Now, they are suddenly building nuclear weapons. They sure work fast. Putin is Trump—they are both liars—and Trump wishes he were Putin. In the end, Slate believes Putin wants to annex Ukraine by overtaking the country’s government. Interestingly, John Schindler of Top Secret Umbra believes it is a religious war.

Schindler opines that Putin is taking a huge risk in invading Ukraine because if he fails, that failure could “unravel [Putin’s] two-decade rule over Russia.” Schindler examined the history of the two countries and pointed out that Putin moved against Ukraine back in 2014-2015. At that time, Putin was able to seize much of Ukraine’s southeast, and that is what is preventing Ukraine from joining NATO without interference. He goes through an explanation of Putin’s alleged Russian Orthodox beliefs, which really means he supports religiously grounded national conservatism, which he believes makes Ukraine subservient to Russia. What a crock. It is unlikely that Putin believes in anything even slightly resembling religion, but if—again like his friend Trump—he can use that to his advantage, he then has everyone where he wants them. It sounds eerily like Trump and his evangelists. Either way, Schindler sees the Russian Orthodox church at the center of Putin’s moves, but in the end, it does not really matter why Putin wants control of Ukraine. What matters is that he must be stopped.

President Biden announced several sanctions against Russia. The LA Times reported “severe economic sanctions,” including the freezing of assets. While members of Congress from both parties believe these sanctions are not strong enough, President Biden is just getting started, and we need to let him do his job. They are watching things closely, as they believe this is only the beginning. This conflict means entry into yet another war for the U.S., and it remains to be seen how this is going to directly impact the U.S.