Category Archives: Putin

Vladimir Putin and his war machine get more respect than they deserve from the West.

This may seem a bit counterintuitive. After all, just 9% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Russia and the International Criminal Court has recently issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes.

But if you listen to a lot of the debate over Ukraine, you might be forgiven for thinking Putins invasion was just a bad mistake, badly implemented by an otherwise serious country. Sure, terrible things are happening in Ukraine, but terrible things happen in war. Whats left out is that the terrible things are the policy, not the unintended consequence of it.

Reports of torture and rape started pouring in from the earliest days of the invasion. In March of 2022, Russian troops electrocuted the genitals of male civilian prisoners and sexually brutalized women and girls, ages 4 to 82.

These werent isolated incidents but the beginning of a campaign of atrocities to come. Numerous mass graves full of corpses, some showing evidence of execution, rape and torture, have been found in areas liberated by Ukrainian forces. The bodies of mutilated children have been discovered. Such horrors can distract from the more routine evils of targeting civilians, including schools and hospitals, and the stealing of thousands of children.

It also leaves out the fact that such tactics arent aberrations. Similar crimes were committed in Putins other adventures, in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria.

But the most conspicuous fact thats absent from the public conversation is that the Russian military has been a villainous force for more than a century.

The horrendous crimes of imperial Russia were part of a pre-modern era of warfare prior to the Geneva Conventions and other laws of war. But its worth remembering that the armies of the czars were famously brutal even for a brutal age. Alexander II, the liberal reformer who freed the serfs, also ordered the genocide of the Circassians and other natives of the Caucasus. Between 600,000 and 1.5 million were killed, the rest deported to the Ottoman Empire. That institutional memory lived on, like a ghost in the Russian killing machine.

The Bolsheviks may have dispatched the czars, but they only amplified the czarist approach to war. Stalins genocides and forced deportations look more like a continuation than a break with the czarist past. And todays atrocities extend that sinister tradition too.

Putin has built on the Soviet effort to turn World War II into a kind of state religion, in which the messianic Red Army saved Europe from fascism. Obviously, the Russian sacrifice in World War II after Hitler broke his pact with Stalin was staggering. But the Soviet approach to war using Russian soldiers as fodder for enemy guns until the enemy is exhausted replicated in Ukraine today is nothing to be proud of.

Neither is the Red Armys record as liberators in Eastern Europe, where they terrorized the population with mass rape. In Hungary, the estimates of rape range from 50,000 to 200,000. So many pregnancies resulted that in January 1946, Hungarys social-welfare minister requested of his superiors to qualify all babies as abandoned whose date of births is from 9 to 18 months after the liberation.

In Vienna alone, there were between 70,000 and 100,000 rapes. Estimates in Soviet-controlled Poland exceed 100,000. In Germany, they run as high as 2 million. Stalin dismissed complaints, saying that his troops had been through so much they deserved to [have] fun with a woman.

The full scale of the mass rapes will never be known, in part because the Soviets destroyed records and kept them secret until the end. And it is now an official secret in Russia once again, as Putin has made it a crime to denigrate the military or to besmirch the memory of the Red Army. He also preemptively exempted troops committing war crimes from prosecution at home or abroad under the Geneva Conventions. On Saturday, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev vowed that Ukraine will be erased.

Horrible things happen in every war. However imperfectly, the West has tried to adhere to principles of war and to minimize future horrors and crimes. The Russian military has never bothered with such views, and under Putin, whos nostalgic for the worst aspects of both czarist and Soviet Russia, it seems to see barbarism and cruelty as part of its identity.

The invasion of Ukraine is the product of a society that, having never successfully confronted the sins of its past, has come to see them as virtues.

@JonahDispatch

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Column: Putin's war on Ukraine is in the sinister tradition of the ...

Vladimir Putin

Unfortunately, Putin is being treated by the best Western doctors, so hes still alive. If he had been treated by the Russians, everything would have ended faster, Skibitskyi said.

Read also: Bizarre insights into state of Putin's health revealed in new investigation

At the end of April 2022, the UK tabloid The Sun published an article stating that Putin had cancer and would soon have a surgery.

In May, the U.S. publication New Lines Magazine obtained a footage from an oligarch close to the Kremlin who says Putin has blood cancer.

Read also: Death of a Russian oligarch in India expands list of suspicious deaths of well-known Russians

Also in May, the head of the HUR, Kyrylo Budanov, stated that Putin had several serious illnesses, including cancer, but the dictator had at least a few more years to live.

Meanwhile, former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele has claimed that Putin is quite seriously ill, but it is not clear with what exactly.

The fact that the dictator had cancer was also stated by the U.S. director Oliver Stone, who had previously made a propaganda film about Putin.

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

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Top treatment from Western doctors is reason why Putin still alive ...

Vladimir Putin Suffers From "Blurred Vision And Numb Tongue", Doctors Panic Over His Health: Report  NDTV

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Vladimir Putin Suffers From "Blurred Vision And Numb Tongue", Doctors Panic Over His Health: Report - NDTV

MOSCOW Russians thought they knew their president.

They were wrong.

And by Thursday, it appeared too late to do anything about it.

For most of his 22-year rule, Vladimir V. Putin presented an aura of calm determination at home of an ability to astutely manage risk to navigate the worlds biggest country through treacherous shoals. His attack on Ukraine negated that image, and revealed him as an altogether different leader: one dragging the nuclear superpower he helms into a war with no foreseeable conclusion, one that by all appearances will end Russias attempts over its three post-Soviet decades to find a place in a peaceful world order.

Russians awoke in shock after they learned that Mr. Putin, in an address to the nation that aired before 6 a.m., had ordered a full-scale assault against what Russians of all political stripes often refer to as their brotherly nation.

There was no spontaneous pro-war jubilation. Instead, liberal-leaning public figures who for years tried to compromise with and adapt to Mr. Putins creeping authoritarianism found themselves reduced to posting on social media about their opposition to a war they had no way to stop.

Other Russians expressed themselves more openly. From St. Petersburg to Siberia, thousands took to city streets chanting No to war!, clips posted on social media showed, despite an overwhelming presence by police officers. OVD Info, a rights group, said more than 1,700 people were arrested across the country.

And in Moscows foreign policy establishment, where analysts overwhelmingly characterized Mr. Putins military buildup around Ukraine as an elaborate and astute bluff in recent months, many admitted on Thursday that they had monumentally misjudged a man they had spent decades studying.

Everything that we believed turned out to be wrong, said one such analyst, insisting on anonymity because he was at a loss over what to say.

I dont understand the motivations, the goals or the possible results, said another. What is happening is very strange.

Ive always tried to understand Putin, a third analyst, Tatiana Stanovaya of the political analysis firm R. Politik, reflected. But now, she said, the usefulness of logic seemed at a limit. He has become less pragmatic, and more emotional.

On state television, Mr. Putins most powerful propaganda tool, the Kremlin tried to project an air of normalcy. The state-run news media characterized Thursdays invasion as not a war, but a special military operation limited to eastern Ukraine. Mr. Putin was shown meeting with the visiting prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, as though he were still shrewdly carrying on his day-to-day business.

This is not the beginning of a war, Maria V. Zakharova, the foreign ministrys spokeswoman, said on television. Our desire is to prevent developments that could escalate into a global war.

Meanwhile, Russias stock market plummeted by 35 percent and A.T.M.s ran short of dollars. On the countrys internet, still mostly uncensored, Russians saw their vaunted military sow carnage in a country in which millions of them had relatives and friends.

The world has turned upside down, said Anastasia, 44, protesting the war in central Moscow Thursday evening despite an imposing presence of riot police officers, and bursting into tears. She gave only her first name for fear of reprisal. I cannot even imagine the consequences; this is a catastrophe.

Many Russians had bought into the Kremlins narrative that theirs was a peace-loving country, and Mr. Putin a careful and calculating leader. After all, many Russians still believe, it was Mr. Putin who lifted their country out of the poverty and chaos of the 1990s and made it into a place with a decent standard of living and worthy of international respect.

Its so strange that Russia could attack anyone, a 60-year-old pensioner said on Thursday as she walked through the breathtaking Moscow park, Zaryadye, that international architects designed ahead of the soccer World Cup Russia hosted in 2018. This has never happened before in history.

Like many on Thursday, she declined to reveal her name in the fear that the outbreak of war could bring with it a new crackdown on peoples freedoms.

One of the countrys ever-dwindling number of rights activists, Marina Litvinovich, called for an antiwar protest to be held in Moscow on Thursday evening, and was promptly arrested. Police buses and riot police descended on Pushkin Square, where she had urged people to gather. An actor posted a directive from his state-run Moscow theater claiming that any negative commentary about the war would be seen by the authorities as treason.

In the last three months, as American officials warned that Mr. Putins troop buildup was a prelude to an invasion, Russians dismissed such talk as a Western failure to understand their presidents fundamental determination to manage risk and avoid rash moves with unpredictable consequences. And with leading opposition figures imprisoned or exiled, there were few figures with the influence to organize an antiwar movement.

Some public figures with ties to the government reversed course, though they recognized it was too late. Ivan Urgant, the most prominent late-night comedian on state television, had ridiculed the idea of a looming war on his show earlier this month. On Thursday he posted a black square on Instagram along with the words: Fear and pain.

Ksenia Sobchak, another television celebrity whose father was mayor of St. Petersburg and a 1990s mentor to Mr. Putin, posted on Instagram that from now on she would only believe in the worst possible scenarios about her countrys future. Days earlier, she had praised Mr. Putin as a grown-up, adequate politician compared to his Ukrainian and American counterparts.

We are now all trapped in this situation, she wrote on Thursday. There is no exit. We Russians will spend many years digging out from the consequences of this day.

During the pandemic, analysts had noticed a change in Mr. Putin a man who isolated himself in a bubble of social distancing without parallel among Western leaders. In isolation, he appeared to become more aggrieved and more emotional, and increasingly spoke about his mission in stark historical terms. His public remarks descended ever deeper into distorted historiography as he spoke of the need to right perceived historical wrongs suffered by Russia over the centuries at the hands of the West.

The political scientist Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a close adviser to Mr. Putin until falling out with him in 2011, said he was stunned by the presidents dark description of Ukraine as a dire threat to Russia in his hourlong speech to the nation on Monday.

I have no clue where he got all that he seems to be reading something totally strange, Mr. Pavlovsky said. Hes become an isolated man, more isolated than Stalin was.

Ms. Stanovaya, the analyst, said she now felt that Mr. Putins heightened obsession with history in recent years had become key to understanding his motivation. After all, the war against Ukraine appeared impossible to explain strategically, since it had no clear resolution and would inevitably only increase anti-Russian sentiment abroad and escalate Russias confrontation with the NATO alliance.

Putin has brought himself to a place in which he sees it as more important, more interesting, more compelling to fight for restoring historical justice than for Russias strategic priorities, Ms. Stanovaya said. This morning, I realized that a certain shift has taken place.

She said that by all appearances, the ruling elite around Mr. Putin did not realize that Thursdays war was coming, and was uncertain about how to respond. Beyond state television personalities and pro-Kremlin politicians, few prominent Russians spoke out in support of the war.

But that, she said, did not mean that Mr. Putin risked any kind of palace coup, given his tight hold on the countrys sprawling security apparatus and his expansive crackdown on dissent over the last year.

He can still act for a long time, Ms. Stanovaya said. Inside Russia, he is practically secure from political risk.

Alina Lobzina and Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Moscow, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

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Russians Now See a New Side to Putin: Dragging Them Into War

Kremlin via Reuters

After months of setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russias Vladimir Putin is apparently now left to demonstrate his toughness by getting into dust-ups with his own subordinates.

The Russian leader appeared to briefly lose it on Wednesday while meeting with government officials. The breaking point came when Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov publicly corrected Putin after he complained that some enterprises had not yet secured contracts for the construction of new aircraft this yeara formidable task given that the country has been cut off from many Western imports crucial to construction.

Footage from the meeting shows Manturov quickly shot back that investment projects were underway, but Putin cut him off to gripe that its taking too long.

There are no orders even for 2023 at some enterprises, he saidonly to be corrected yet again when Manturov told him all the enterprises have orders for the year and the Defense Ministry confirmed the number.

Putin, trying to keep his cool, responded by again insisting he was right and Manturov was wrong.

After the Trade and Industry Minister corrected him a third time, the Russian president finally flipped out.

Lets finish this, whats the point of sparring here with you? The directors told me [there are no contracts]. Really, why are you playing the fool? he scolded Manturov, demanding he get the job in a month and no later.

Russian state media appeared to seize on the confrontation to play up Putins macho image, reporting on his dressing down of Manturov but leaving out the trade ministers initial comments that there were in fact contracts for the year.

Putin also used the meeting as an opportunity to declare that all problems connected to his so-called special military operation against Ukraine would be fixed soon.

In the same breath, he claimed the country had not suffered any fallout as a result of the war.

None of what our enemy predicted for us happened. And this is, of course, thanks primarily to the citizens of Russia, their composure, all of our composure, readiness for challenges and to work in difficult conditions.

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Putin Loses It in Taped Meeting With Russian Officials

European, U.S. leaders send message to Putin: 'You will not get away with this'  Tyler Morning Telegraph

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European, U.S. leaders send message to Putin: 'You will not get away with this' - Tyler Morning Telegraph

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed not to kill Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenksyy during early negotiations of the invasion, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday.

Bennett briefly served as a mediator between Putin and Zelenskyy in the opening weeks of Russia's invasion. The former prime minister traveled to Moscow and met with Putin in March 2022, and he detailed their conversation during an interview posted online on Saturday.

"I asked whats with this? Are you planning to kill Zelenskyy? He said I wont kill Zelenskyy. I then said to him I have to understand that youre giving me your word that you wont kill Zelenskyy. He said Im not going to kill Zelenskyy,'" Bennett said of their conversation.

Bennett said he then called Zelenskyy to tell him the news.

"Listen, I came out of a meeting, hes not going to kill you. He asks, are you sure? I said 100% he wont kill you,'" Bennett said.

Revelations of Putin's promise come just weeks before the one-year anniversary of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Diplomatic efforts have since fizzled out, however, and Zelenskyy now says he is unwilling to speak with Putin until he withdraws his forces from Ukraine.

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Other Ukrainian officials have dismissed Bennett's statement, arguing Putin was simply lying.

"Do not be fooled: [Putin] is an expert liar. Every time he has promised not to do something, it has been exactly part of his plan," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote Sunday on Twitter.

Putin's military appears to be gearing up for a major ground offensive in the coming months, leading to Ukraine's desperate calls for tanks from its Western allies. The U.S. committed to delivering 31 M1 Abrams tanks in late January, though the vehicles require complicated training and maintenance and will not be seen on the battlefield for months.

GERMANY 'NOW APPRECIATING THE MOMENT' AS IT FINALLY AGREES TO SEND TANKS TO UKRAINE, GRAHAM SAYS

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Germany, Poland and other European countries are also delivering German-made Leopard 2 tanks, which will see service much sooner.

The U.S. has promised to deliver 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

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The U.S. has delivered tens of billions in military aid to Ukraine since the invasion began in February 2022. President Biden's administration has stated that the aid will continue for "as long as it takes."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Vladimir Putin vowed not to kill Zelenskyy, former Israeli PM claims

Russian President Vladimir Putin could "disappear at any moment," sending Moscow into a civil conflict amid its floundering invasion of Ukraine, warned former commander Igor Girkin.

Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, rose to prominence for his role in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. He has become increasingly critical of Kremlin leadership as its military struggles to achieve substantial military gains in Ukraine nearly a year after Putin launched the "special military operation." Although he supports the goals of the Russian military, he has recently offered grim assessments of the war for Putin.

During a recent discussion, Girkin weighed in on whether a change in Kremlin leadership would benefit Russia's military operation in Ukraine, acknowledging that there is a chance Putin could "disappear" amid longstanding questions about his health. A video of his remarks was posted to Twitter by Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry,

Girkin declined to "rule out" the possibility that Putin could suddenly "disappear at any moment," whether he abdicates his position as president or dies, noting that his state is the "biggest secret" in Russia.

Russia would likely delve into chaos and lead to "external defeat" in Ukraine in this scenario, according to Girkin. He explained that new leadership would even allow Kyiv to retake control of Crimea, a goal of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Putin has warned would impede peace talks.

But defeat in Ukraine would not be the only issue faced by Russia, Girkin said. He also predicted a "power struggle with unpredictable consequences would ensure" if Putin was no longer the leader of Russia.

He suggested new leadership could potentially turn Russia against China, perhaps its most powerful ally amid the widely-condemned Ukraine war.

"Then the process of this country's disintegration will start," Girkin said. "A civil war of all against all. I do not exclude the possibility that we are doomed to this. I do not rule it out."

The video of Girkin's remarks was viewed nearly 40,000 times Monday afternoon on Twitter. Despite Girkin's speculation, the Kremlin has not indicated any plans for Putin, and longstanding beliefs and intelligence that Putin may be suffering from various health issues, including cancer, have never formally been confirmed by Moscow.

His remarks come just days after he said Russia "failed" in the Ukraine war because Putin has not called a full mobilization of troops to fight in Ukraine. He accused Putin of withdrawing himself from leading the invasion, delegating it to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, "who has prepared his army badly."

Girkin also said last month low morale among Putin's troops will make it "impossible" for Russia to declare victory against Ukraine.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry for comment.

Excerpt from:

Putin May 'Disappear at Any Moment,' Spark Russian Civil War: Ex-Commander

SICK Vladimir Putin's "days are numbered" as the tyrant faces being carted off to hospital in a "sudden end" to his rule, the former head of MI6 has warned.

Rumours have swirled for months about the 70-year-old Russian leader's reportedly failing health - fuelled by his bloated face and trembling legs.

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Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, told The Sun Online that there is clearly "something wrong with him" - and the most likely explanation is a diagnosis of Parkinson's.

It comes after bombshell spy documents leaked to The Sun Online appeared to confirm he has pancreatic cancer and early-stage Parkinson's disease.

Ukraine previously suggested Russia is using body doubles to stand in for Putin - and earlier this month, the country's spy chief claimed he will die very soon of cancer.

The tyrant was alsopictured with suspected track marksfrom IV treatment on the back of his hand - amid rumours he's suffering from cancer and crippling pain.

Sir Richard warned the "preconditions for his disappearance or collapse" have now been set as the tyrant's shambolic war in Ukraine rumbles on.

The former spy boss also suggested Putin's increased isolation could be linked to his illness.

"My view is there is still something wrong with him, medically," he said.

"I'm not a clinician, but I know a number of people have watched him closely, and they think the most likely explanation is Parkinson's.

"There's no proof - but he shows quite a lot of the symptoms. If he does have Parkinson's, that can certainly impair your judgement.

"The two favourite medical diagnoses through observing him is either Parkinson's or blood cancer, or maybe both.

"But the Russians will be desperate to make sure Putin's health is a state secret."

As the Russian leader's health reportedly deteriorates, Sir Richard said Putin could be "shuffled" off to a sanitorium - and never reappear.

"It's quite possible they just shuffle him off into a sanitorium and say he's unwell, and then he doesn't reappear," he said.

"Talking to someone from central Europe who I regard as pretty well informed, he said you have the preconditions now for there to be a pretty sudden end to Putin's administration, or to Putin himself.

"It's impossible to say when that is going to happen. He's definitely in a very difficult place - there's no question about that.

"I think you have preconditions for his disappearance or collapse - which could be violent."

Either he gets gently pushed aside and someone close to him takes over, or there's a major political upheaval and there's a real meltdown

Sir Richard said there's "no way" Putin would step aside.

"Either he gets gently pushed aside and someone close to him takes over, or there's a major political upheaval and there's a real meltdown," he said.

"I think both of those things are possible. Things are in a pretty bad state, and he's probably going to lose this war, or come out of it in a position where it looks like he's lost.

"He's got this so wrong, there must be a huge amount of opposition within the Kremlin. If it continues to go badly, I think Putin's days are numbered.

"The more so if he's got a medical problem. How that will happen and when it will happen is entirely guesswork.

"But people who are well informed think he's in a pretty fragile situation."

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The former spy chief said the Russian dictator has got himself "deeper and deeper into what looks like an unwinnable war".

Putin is said to be plotting a "dangerous escalation" in the war as the West have been warned over Russia's air-force capabilities.

But Sir Richard warned the tyrant's "days are numbered because of the disastrous war".

He said Putin's options are limited - and a further mobilisation will be hugely unpopular in Russia.

"The Russian military has performed very poorly," he said.

"They expected to walk in Kyiv, knock the regime over, and put in a puppet regime... we know that didn't happen and he's just got himself deeper and deeper into what looks like an unwinnable war.

He suggested said there could be a coup inside the Kremlin to oust Putin - but the mechanisms for political change in Russia are "fragile".

"I think we're heading into another phase where you're going to get a political upheaval as a result of a war gone badly wrong," he said.

"There could be a coup inside the Kremlin.

I think you have preconditions for his disappearance or collapse - which could be violent

"I don't think there will be a popular uprising in Russia, but because of the catastrophic situation they're in, there must be massive tensions in the current leadership."

Despite the Russian front stabilising in Ukraine for now, Sir Richard said the war is still a "disaster".

"More and more intelligent Russians must realise he's in a difficult place - particularly now the West are gearing up to supply tanks," he said.

"There are only two endings possible - one is victory, and the other is compromise. Putin is in a desperate place - but what's he going to do to win it? It's looking pretty dire for him.

"The circumstances will dictate the end of Putin's regime. The preconditions for it ending are already clearly there. I think he's in a catastrophic position already."

Sir Richard also said the danger of the war spilling over still exists - but insisted it's "unlikely".

"NATO will do everything to avoid the risk of a direct conflict," he said.

"On the other hand, the last thing the Russians need is a direct conflict with NATO as well.

"I think both sides will be very careful to keep the war within the boundaries it's currently contained in - unless Putin does completely lose his marbles and uses a tactical nuclear weapon.

"I think the chances of that are very unlikely. It would be an act of real desperation."

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Putin likely has Parkinsons - his days are numbered & he'll come to a ...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday leveled another veiled nuclear threat in relation to the war in Ukraine as he ripped into Germany for providing battle tanks to Kyiv, while comparing Russia's unprovoked invasion of its next-door neighbor to the Soviet Union's fight against the Nazis during World War II.

"Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country," Putin said during a speech in Volgograd, per Reuters. Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad after the Soviet dictator, was the site of the World War II battle that put Nazi Germany on the path to defeat at an estimated cost of 750,000 Soviet lives.

"Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It's incredible but it's a fact: we are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them," Putin added.

The Russian leader left out some key facts, however. The Leopard tanks will be operated by Ukrainians, and Germany joined the US and the UK in offering battle tanks to aid Ukraine in regaining territory it has lost since Russia invaded almost a year ago. The US and other Western powers have avoided providing longer-range missiles and fighter jets that Ukraine could use to strike inside Russia.

Putin said that the battle of Stalingrad was indicative of "the indestructible nature of our people," adding that those who draw European countries into a new war with Moscow and "expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently don't understand that a modern war with Russia will be quite different for them."

"We don't send our tanks to their borders but we have the means to respond, and it won't end with the use of armored vehicles, everyone must understand that," Putin said, in an apparent reference to Russia's nuclear arsenal. The Russian leader has repeatedly made nuclear threats since the war began, and has been condemned across the world as a result.

Russian lawmakers have reportedly been urged to make comparisons between Stalingrad a battle against Nazi invaders and the present-day fight in Ukraine, despite the fact Russia is now the aggressor. Putin has frequently harkened to WWII which Russians remember as the Great Patriotic War to seek greater support as the country faces economic hardships and well over 100,000 casualties from Ukraine.

Putin has offered a series of justifications for launching the invasion, including the bogus assertion that Ukraine is led by neo-Nazis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust, but the Kremlin has continued to make references to Nazism in an effort to justify the ongoing war.

Top Russia experts say Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine because he has been preoccupied with subjugating it for years and wants to restore the power and prestige enjoyed by Moscow during the Soviet era. Putin, who has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine is not a real country, once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.

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Putin Slams Germany for Sending Tanks to Ukraine, Hints at Russia's Nukes