Steven Seagal and his buddy Vladimir Putin.

 

Joined at the hip - Steven Segal & Vladimir Putin

Steven Seagal was born in Michigan in the U.S.A. and his father was Russian. He's said that his mother was a Russophile and was completely immersed in Russian culture and that he considers himself "one million percent Russian." I believe he now lives in Russia and has become a Russian citizen.

Vladimir Putin awarded Seagal an Order of Friendship medal and he was also appointed a special envoy for Russia. Seagal has campaigned to get the E.U. to lift sanctions against Russia and has described Russia and the Ukraine has one big family. He's accused the U.S. of spending "billions of dollars on disinformation, lies" which was an attempt to "try to discredit, demoralise and destroy the emerging morale of Russia." The American martial arts actor has described Putin has "one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leaders alive today", a sentiment that is probably shared by Donald Trump who said of Putin, "I have no relationship with him other than he called me a genius." The former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who is also a fan of Donald Trump, has described Putin "as the world leader I most admire."

It takes a lot of guts or stupidity, or possibly both, to take a political stance against Putin if you're a Russian citizen. Those who have done so, usually finish up dead or incarcerated. Putin, a modern-day Russian Tsar in all but name, has just begun his fifth term as Russia's president and he's not up for re-election until 2030. He's now been in power for nearly 25 years and is the longest serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin.

Some Kremlin apologists have said that Putin's unprovoked attack on the Ukraine in February 2022, was brought about because of NATO expansionism Eastwards.  They've also said that NATO and the U.S. are fighting a "proxy war" in the Ukraine. There may be an element of truth in this but I seem to recall that Putin initially called the invasion of the Ukraine a "special operation", that would "denazify" the Ukraine which was led by a Ukrainian Jew called Volodymyr Zelensky. I also recall that following the Russian invasion, Zelensky turned down an offer of help from the United States for him and his family to abandon and leave the capital city of Kyiv.

Some time ago, I watched an interview with Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson. He was asked if NATO expansionism towards the East had been a factor in Russia invading the Ukraine. Putin dismissed this at the outset and proceeded to give Carlson a history lesson about Russia and the Ukraine. For Putin, the Ukraine is not a separate country but part of Russia and he's never accepted that the Ukraine is a sovereign country. He's a Russian nationalist and a revanchist who is fighting a war to reclaim lost Russian territory and status.

The Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014, was in my view, inevitable and understandable. The Russian's were never going to allow the Ukrainians to remove access to their vitally strategic naval bases in the region. Ukrainian troops and irregulars also attacked pro-Russian Ukrainian citizens in the East and committed many atrocities. While this was going on in the Ukraine, most NATO countries remained indifferent and turned a blind eye.