“Putin understands American liberals better than most of them understand themselves, and lightyears better than they understand him. This is among the reasons their assessment of his motivations is so misleading and incomplete. By presenting his actions as essentially reasonable and defensive in nature, by continuing, humiliation after humiliation, to hope that Putin will one day be their partner, they fail to focus their analysis on the dark core of his beliefs, which are ironically the very traits they believe compromise American conservatism: toxic nationalism and neo-imperialism.”
” it is dangerously wrong to reason further that the man who seized Crimea in a surprise attack has some sort of principled preference for order over chaos. It isn’t order he wants. It’s the return of the Russian Empire.”
Putin’s Angels: Inside Russia’s Most Infamous Motorcycle Club
The Night Wolves are backed by the Kremlin, fighting in Ukraine and hellbent on restoring the empire