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Putin believes that Ukraine is historically part of Russia and it's independent existence is only tolerable if the country is firmly in Russia's sphere of influence.
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He believes the CIA engineered a coup that overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine and replaced it with a western puppet regime in 2014.
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He believes the modern nationalist Ukrainian state draws from the legacy of Nazi collaboration during WWII and poses a direct threat to Russian national security. Removing this particular nationalist influence is a key goal of the military operation, which he seeks to achieve through negotiation.
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Russia expressed interest in joining NATO during the Clinton administration but was rejected. This lead Russia to feel geopolitically isolated and cut off from the whole western project.
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He believes the west is obsessed with weakening Russia as much as possible and that NATO is nothing more than an anti-Russian alliance.
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Putin thinks China is now more powerful than the United States and more relevant.
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He believes our government is controlled by an entrenched bureaucracy that cannot be changed through elections.
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He believes the US and European Union are extorting taxpayers to fund Ukraine's war. He sees no reason why the US continues to support Ukraine.
Putin Interview Summarized
RUSSIAN SALT MINES 🇷🇺
Putin is basically right on every account from what we can see -- and have been talking about for years. The color revolution has been pointed to well before Ukraine vs Russia.
With our country being brought to its knees, he's probably right about that too. Even if we ignore all the foreign invaders penetrating our borders, if we just stick to critical manufacturing (medicine, steel, silicon) China has pulled all of our manufacturing over there and our government has, at every turn, helped them.
Further, China forcibly holding their cheap slave labor hostage on grounds of requiring access to and partial ownership of in some fashion intellectual properties, American companies -- again, encouraged by the government -- have likely accelerated China a hundred years forward from where they were just decades ago.
He is likely right that the problem can't simply be changed through elections, but without intervention -- Q -- it puts this country into a very uncomfortable predicament that even the accelerationists won't like if that's how things shook out.
One thing I know for sure: our problems are ours to sort out and any foreign government trying to stick their boots on our soil to "help" us do it should be considered an enemy.