BTW— I had a good born in Poland friend about 7 years ago. He absolutely hated the Russians. He would go on about this. I mostly remained silent, because I thought Putin was a good non-woke, anti-gay, religious leader for the Russians. Much better than what we had with Obama.
Now I know why he hated the brutal Russians so much. The Putin led Russians who hire Chechens and Syrian Muslims to do their dirty work in Ukraine. Putin is actually a demented multiculturalist (would be) Tsar who will take any non-Slavic minority, send them to Ukraine to kill Ukrainian Slavs. Russian Mongolians too! Though old USSR Muslim minorities are preferred.
“ BTW— I had a good born in Poland friend about 7 years ago. He absolutely hated the Russians. He would go on about this. I mostly remained silent, because I thought Putin was a good non-woke, anti-gay, religious leader for the Russians.”
Why did anyone ever believe this?
Putin isn’t exactly some enigma you know. Who he really is has always been public knowledge.
Good on you to be open minded.
I had more sympathy for Putin as well for the reasons you state. Now it is obvious it was just a facade.