[free_life]

The anti-Christ or one of them.

[wbarmy]

This is all because of Beslan. Putin went after the terrorists hard and has killed multitudes of them in Russian, Chechnya, etc. We do not hear about it because it would have got in the way of discussing Bruce Jenner or one of the Kardashians. But the Russians know what he is doing and support the iron hand all the way.

[marron]

Somewhat incoherent piece.

Doesn't notice that ISIS aren't the only ones killing Christians, the other so-called "rebels" are also doing it.

Criticism implied of Christians for preferring the relative safety of Assad to being slaughtered by ISIS and the various Al Qaeda knock-offs.

Notes that stability is necessary for the survival of non-muslim minorities and blames the Russians for the chaos. Of course, the chaos preceded their entry into the theater. And actually, it isn't just stability, but stability that minorities need but stability under the rule of someone who doesn't want them dead.

Wanting to get rid of Assad wasn't per se a bad goal. The problem is that they didn't consider who or what would replace him. If you're a Turk, you don't care if the new dictator chops up Christians for lunch. If you're an American at State, theoretically you should care. What is disturbing is that its possible to rise at State and be so completely uninterested in genocide if the victims are Christian. Thats Obama's State Department, and America elected the guy not once but twice.

[R. Scott]

A better leader than what we have.

[PGR88]

Given that he’s the first Russian leader in a century to actually give public support to the church, it’s no surprise they love him

[binreadin]

Anyone see the “Christmas” Satanic light show at the Vatican on 8 December this year? Let’s hope Putin has seen it too.

[JEDI4S]

The Russian air crews and pilots bombing the muzzie hordes are openly taunting the U.S. by writing “crusader” on the bombs they are dropping on McCain and Obamas friends.

As if to say...hey...get in the game boys & girls.

[ETL]

Putin: Defender of Christian Faith and Morality?

September 2014

(excerpt from a long, detailed article)

First and foremost, in any review of the basics regarding Putin, the most outstanding fact is that he is a creature of the Soviet KGB, a truly diabolical organization nonpareil, which stood for murder, terror, and grand deception.

It was the Soviet Communist Party's tool for the brutal suppression of religion, including the persecution of Christians: denying them jobs and education; spying on and entrapping them; arresting and imprisoning them; torturing them in unspeakable ways; desecrating and demolishing their church buildings; infiltrating their agents into churches to subvert them. The KGB destroyed thousands of Christian churches, monasteries, convents, and schools, and slaughtered millions of Christians.

But it did not destroy the churches utterly. There remained an underground church, whose members were always at risk of discovery, arrest, torture, and martyrdom. Above ground, the KGB took control of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a very useful organ of the Soviet atheist state.

In January 2009, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev, better known as Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was elected, from a short list of three candidates, to be the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the highest position of authority in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The election was called to fill the post that had been left vacant by the death of Patriarch Alexy II, who had headed the ROC since 1990.

Documents from the KGB archives have confirmed what sensible observers had long ago deduced from his actions: that Patriarch Alexy II (also spelled Alexi or Alexei) was a long-serving KGB agent (code-named Drozdov, "Blackbird"), in other words, a traitor to his Christian brethren and the God he claimed to serve. Putin's KGB/FSB was taking no chances with his replacement. All three candidates - Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk (code-named Topaz), Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk (code-named Ostrovskii), and Metropolitan Kirill (code-named Mikhailov) - also have been reliably identified as agents of the KGB/FSB.

Russia expert David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times (of London) and the Wall Street Journal, wrote of the election in 2009 for Forbes:

According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies.

Because Patriarch Kirill is of central importance to the myth of Putin as the Saul-to-Paul, Christian persecutor-to-Christian champion, it behooves us to more closely examine the man. He has publicly presided over, and provided official benedictions and exhortations for, Putin's cynical and Stalinesque exploitation of Russian nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. Josef Stalin, who had very nearly consummated the annihilation of the Russian Orthodox Church begun by Vladimir Lenin, reversed course in 1941. The reason? His erstwhile partner in crime, Adolf Hitler, had turned on him and had invaded Russia.

Stalin, needing all the help he could get, cut a deal with ROC Metropolitans Sergius, Nikolay, and Alexy. In exchange for their support in rallying the Russian people, he would cease (temporarily) the persecution and allow the reopening of churches and theological schools. In fact, Stalin's Soviet government paid for the rebuilding of many of the churches. The ROC was thus placed even more firmly under the control of the NKVD, which was later to be reorganized and renamed as the KGB. ..."

much more at link

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/19162-putin-defender-of-christian-faith-and-morality

***********************************************************

"For 16 years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991.

He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging,[3] and was reelected in 2004."

"On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), the position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on 1 October 1998 and its Secretary on 29 March 1999."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[ETL]

"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor"

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131219/185734707/Putin-Says-Stalin-No-Worse-Than-Cunning-Oliver-Cromwell.html
______________________________________

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...

"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'..."

"The more I see and read about Mr. Putin, in power since 1999, and his 'managed democracy,' the more apprehensive I become about the future of Russia and the safety of its neighbors.

If Putin believes that the dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states represents the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,' then it follows that Putin might well believe he should do something to repair the loss..."

http://web.archive.org/web/20090415000000*/http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
______________________________________

"The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century'," Putin said in 2005.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/11102.30640.0.0/asia/moscow-puts-the-soviet-squeeze-on-neighbor-nations
______________________________________

______________________________________

"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism's crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100711090651/http://article.nationalreview.com/365528/forgetting-the-evils-of-communism/jonah-goldberg
______________________________________

"The demise of the Soviet Union was the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century'," Putin said in 2005.

"Putin said Stalin deserves statues in his honor"

[AdmSmith]

Putin has as well a holy war against the middle class of Russia:

Japanese company Toshiba is closing its Russian division for television sets and kitchen appliances Toshiba CIS, Kommersant newspaper reported Monday, according to Russian news agency TASS.

“We have completely left the Russian consumer market. We have sold all the goods as early as last December, when there was a peak of sales, Toshiba Rus Director Hiroaki Tezuka told the newspaper.
Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/economics/1211283-toshiba-leaves-russian-tv-and-kitchen-appliances-market-media.html