By Joseph Batory
“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”
― George Bernard Shaw

Our criminally convicted president is now cozying up to Vladimir Putin, the Russian totalitarian, an ongoing violator of human rights. Trump has apparently fantasized that the 49.8% of the popular vote he received in the most recent presidential election was a landslide which anointed him with an absolute mandate to do whatever he wants even to endorse evil.

And evil is what Putin’s illegal intrusion into Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has been all about. Since that initial attack, massive pain, destruction and bloodshed has been caused, by Putin and his Russians with hundreds of thousands killed and millions more displaced from Ukrainian homes.
Russian forces have committed widespread violations of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing and shelling of civilian areas that hit homes and healthcare and educational facilities. Russian forces have been guilty of numerous war crimes, including torture, summary executions, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and looting of cultural property.
In addition, the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin President of the Russian Federation, for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
The history of Russia has been dominated by absolute rulers who have created ongoing episodes of massive oppression of the populace. The Soviet era (1922-1991) was among the worst, with dictators Lenin and later Stalin perpetrating crime after crime against the people. Finally, when the Soviet Union crashed in the early 1990’s, there was hope for a new birth of freedom and liberty in Russia.
But then came Vladimir Putin, little more than a Soviet KGB (secret police) officer) as the new leader of Russia. Not surprisingly given his background, Putin has built a lengthy record of criminality.
According to Human Rights Watch, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin ordered intensified efforts at home to eradicate any dissent about the war or the Kremlin’s domestic policies. And Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world.

Beyond Ukraine, the picture of widespread human rights abuses via Putin inside Russia today includes: Restricting free expression, assembly, speech, and objective news coverage; Expanding the definition of political activism to include environmental and health issues and therefore classify such nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as “foreign agents” in order to fine or terminate them; Ongoing discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, the LGBT community, people with disabilities, and women; Use of excessive and sometimes lethal force by law enforcement; Lack of due process in politically motivated cases; Executive control over the judiciary; and, No punishment for government abuse of human rights.
Putin has imprisoned many thousands of political opponents and had had many of them killed. He has now created an oligarchy where his millionaire friends control vast amounts of wealth with little government oversight in return for supporting Putin politically and financially. Meanwhile, many ordinary Russian citizens struggle to survive economically.

In summary, Putin is simply one more despicable Russian dictator. And certainly, he is no friend of the USA. Putin is a first and foremost a criminal who is unworthy of respect/admiration from naïve and misguided American leadership.

***Footnote: Russian president Vladimir Putin directed serious Russian meddling into the 2016 USA election. Who says so? The Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency in a declassified report which concluded that Putin ordered a campaign not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system but to affect the outcome. This report notes that Putin and the Russian government targeted the 2016 presidential election with the goal of denigrating candidate Clinton while showing a clear preference for their favored candidate — Trump.