[lentulusgracchus]

We need to cultivate Russia into a friend and partner that they have wanted to be for the last 30 some odd years.

I think you're seriously out of your mind. Putin is nothing but old-line KGB, and all those Khrushchev boasts about "we will bury you" are still good with him.

Ordinary Russians are one thing. Russian nationalists and old-school Bolsheviks are another matter entirely. Russia is run by a combination of those two passions.

[duckln]

Things now are upside down from what they were 30 years ago.

Only the brainwashed well by our MSM, would believe that Putin is pedaling communist ideology and world domination. Respect yes.

He has all he can handle protecting his huge country, with only 135 million people, the last thing he wants is an area war being forced on him by an encroaching NATO.

He's moving his country forward and that's what we should be doing.