Is Putin Persecuted or Not?

[Jason]

Some view his as a warmonger, kind of like how they viewed George W. Bush back in the day.  However, others think there is an overreaction to what Putin did and they think Putin is being persecuted because he comes across as a conservative Christian type (one reason).

Anyway, my views are mixed.   Well, this whole situation is like the Cuban Missle Crisis in that Russia sees an enemy too close to it's border.   However, though, of course, small nations don't like being pushed around by larger ones.  That's just the way things have always been.

[Grungie]

Anyone that thinks he’s being persecuted for being Christian is doing some serious gymnastics.

[Jason]

7 hours ago, Grungie said:

Anyone that thinks he’s being persecuted for being Christian is doing some serious gymnastics.

Well, honestly, the world is all about playing the victim.  For instance, you can say Ukraine was invaded by Russia, but you could also say the USA is using Ukraine to colonize Russia (I know it sounds crazy, but that's a common Putin-supporter opinion in Russia.).

[Grungie]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

Well, honestly, the world is all about playing the victim.  For instance, you can say Ukraine was invaded by Russia, but you could also say the USA is using Ukraine to colonize Russia (I know it sounds crazy, but that's a common Putin-supporter opinion in Russia.).

Okay, but what does the Christian part have to do with anything?

[Jason]

16 hours ago, Grungie said:

Okay, but what does the Christian part have to do with anything?

Just as much as with George W. being one.  However, I suppose a point is that the love of his family value stuff might cause some to overlook the suppression of freedom and war 

[Uncrowned Guard]

Obviously, the US is not innocent as even the war on terror led to a barely/highly debated justified invasion of Afghanistan and a completely unjustified invasion of Iraq and that is not even the whole list of problems the US has had.  However, Putin is without question in a much worse view as his recent wars, including the war in Ukraine, have all been for conquest of the area.  There is no way to look at Putin in a good light as there is essentially no war cause more unjustified than conquest for resources, perhaps conquest for genocide, but Putin isn't doing too well in that regard either.

I personally have never seen his Christian ways mentioned as to why the world is persecuting him, most of the nations looking poorly at him are Christian nations.  Sure, he does get some love from the insane people on the far, far, right of things, but those are just tiny extremist groups and every dictator has some extremist group that loves them.

[Grungie]

9 hours ago, Jason said:

Just as much as with George W. being one.  However, I suppose a point is that the love of his family value stuff might cause some to overlook the suppression of freedom and war 

Idk what George Bush has to do with any of this. I'm also not sure where you're pulling any of this stuff from. Also, it was mentioned earlier that most of the countries condeming Russia are also predominantly Christian, so saying he's being criticized for being Christian is just pulling a strawman.

Russian spy confirmed.

Edited February 11 by Grungie

[Jason]

On 2/10/2024 at 6:23 PM, Grungie said:

Idk what George Bush has to do with any of this. I'm also not sure where you're pulling any of this stuff from. Also, it was mentioned earlier that most of the countries condeming Russia are also predominantly Christian, so saying he's being criticized for being Christian is just pulling a strawman.

Russian spy confirmed.

 Of course, small nations don't want to be pushed around by bigger ones.  Of course, Ukraine wants NATO to help defend themselves.  It's like Cuba formerly wanting the Soviet Union's help.

In this case, how can we understand the POV of aggressors?   They always have reasons, like when the Germany invaded the Soviet Union to save the world from Communism, supposedly.

Edited February 12 by Jason

[Grungie]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 Of course, small nations don't want to be pushed around by bigger ones.  Of course, Ukraine wants NATO to help defend themselves.  It's like Cuba formerly wanting the Soviet Union's help.

In this case, how can we understand the POV of aggressors?   They always have reasons, like when the Germany invaded the Soviet Union to save the world from Communism, supposedly.

You didn’t answer anything I just said.

[Uncrowned Guard]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

In this case, how can we understand the POV of aggressors?   They always have reasons, like when the Germany invaded the Soviet Union to save the world from Communism, supposedly.

I believe the most likely reason for the invasion is that Ukraine was starting to become a natural gas giant that could rival Russia.  The discoveries of massive gas fields and the introduction of Western drilling companies were rapidly placing Ukraine in a position to supply the EU and directly compete with Russia for their largest customer and most valuable export.  This is really followed up by Russia's involvement in the Donbas rebels that are next to these fields and even the Chimera invasion that took out Ukraine's best ports.  

There is also the NATO membership idea, but Ukraine wasn't looking like it was going to have major support to join NATO internally and NATO also didn't have a huge reason to accept them as Ukraine was they were a stability-generating buffer state since the fall of the USSR.  Of course, we may never know what spies and unofficial documents were saying about this matter for both sides.

Then there is just the unchecked aggression by Putin and the dream of restoring the older Russian Empires.  Many people are quick to point out that the US has little room to judge Russia, but in all reality, Russia has not only started more wars since the creation of the Russian Federation, but each one of those wars has resulted in more deaths than all of the US ones combined and also ended with the expansion of Russian land and had no justification for the initial invasions.

Overall, they are quite comparable with the Nazi Germany nation of old where nearly all their reasoning and justifications were simply made up to gain support for the wars.  Although, the Nazis at least had moderate reasonings to start the initial invasions due to the terrible Treaty of Versailles of WW1 setting up a nearly certain WW2.

[Jason]

21 hours ago, Grungie said:

You didn’t answer anything I just said.

Yeah, being a Christian has nothing to do with, unless you've subscribed to that conspiracy theory that Ukraine is a hotbed of moral corruption (common view, similar to the accusations against the South Vietnamese regime back in the day).  Anyway, though, in these sorts of arguments, the blame game is endless.  All you got to do is claim moral superiority for whatever side you're on.