Replies

You think there is some other purpose to this whole thing? I just don’t buy so easily that all of a sudden he’s a man of God.

This goes back quite a few years, actually. Putin was pushing an initiative to build Russian Orthodox chapels on their military bases and such - the time period might've been pre-Obama, or thereabouts. The people who believe that he wants to restore Soviet communism always find that fact a tough one to argue around.

I don't trust Putin either, but I acknowledge that he's a lot more complex than the neocon hawks want to make him seem. He does seem to be trying to preserve Russia's pre-Soviet era Christian identity, which is a smart move. Post-Christian "humanism" is a bust in Western Europe, serving only to create a vacuum which Islam will happily fill.