Is Vladimir Putin a communist, a Christian?

[ajax18]

Admittedly I don't know much. Putin has refused to say much about his religious beliefs. His father was an atheist. His mother was Russian orthodox Christian. Is he a communist, a free market capitalist, woke, or just a dictator?

Promoting conservatism

Putin attends the Orthodox Christmas service in the village Turginovo in Kalininsky District, Tver Oblast, 7 January 2016

Putin has promoted explicitly conservative policies in social, cultural, and political matters, both at home and abroad. Putin has attacked globalism and neo-liberalism and is identified by scholars with Russian conservatism.[328] Putin has promoted new think tanks that bring together like-minded intellectuals and writers. For example, the Izborsky Club, founded in 2012 by the conservative right-wing journalist Alexander Prokhanov, stresses (i) Russian nationalism, (ii) the restoration of Russia's historical greatness, and (iii) systematic opposition to liberal ideas and policies.[329] Vladislav Surkov, a senior government official, has been one of the key economics consultants during Putin's presidency.[330]

In cultural and social affairs Putin has collaborated closely with the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Church, endorsed his election in 2012 stating Putin's terms were like "a miracle of God."[331] Steven Myers reports, "The church, once heavily repressed, had emerged from the Soviet collapse as one of the most respected institutions... Now Kiril led the faithful directly into an alliance with the state."[332]

Mark Woods, a Baptist minister and contributing editor to Christian Today, provides specific examples of how the Church has backed the expansion of Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine.[333] More broadly, The New York Times reports in September 2016 how the Church's policy prescriptions support the Kremlin's appeal to social conservatives:

"A fervent foe of homosexuality and any attempt to put individual rights above those of family, community or nation, the Russian Orthodox Church helps project Russia as the natural ally of all those who pine for a more secure, illiberal world free from the tradition-crushing rush of globalization, multiculturalism and women's and gay rights."[334]


Religion
Putin is Russian Orthodox. His mother was a devoted Christian believer who attended the Russian Orthodox Church, while his father was an atheist.[570] Though his mother kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly, despite government persecution of her religion at that time. His mother secretly baptized him as a baby, and she regularly took him to services.[28]

According to Putin, his religious awakening began after a serious car crash involving his wife in 1993, and a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996.[570] Shortly before an official visit to Israel, Putin's mother gave him his baptismal cross, telling him to get it blessed. Putin states, "I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since."[28] When asked in 2007 whether he believes in God, he responded, "... There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody's consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease."[571] Putin's rumoured confessor is Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov.[572] However, the sincerity of his Christianity has been rejected by his former advisor Sergei Pugachev.[573]

United States, Western Europe, and NATO
See also: Russia–NATO relations, Russia–United States relations, and Anti-American sentiment in Russia
Putin with U.S. President Donald Trump at the summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 16 July 2018

Under Putin, Russia's relationships with NATO and the U.S. have passed through several stages. When he first became president, relations were cautious, but after the 9/11 attacks Putin quickly supported the U.S. in the War on Terror and the opportunity for partnership appeared.[372] According to Stephen F. Cohen, the U.S. "repaid by further expansion of NATO to Russia's borders and by unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty",[372] but others pointed out the applications from new countries willing to join NATO was driven primarily by Russian's behavior in Chechnya, Transnitria, Abkhazia, Yanayev putsch as well as calls to restore USSR in its previous borders by prominent Russian politicians.[373][374]

From 2003, when Russia strongly opposed the U.S. when it waged the Iraq War Putin became ever more distant from the West. Relations steadily deteriorated. According to Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen, the narrative of the mainstream U.S. media, following that of the White House, became anti-Putin.[372] In an interview with Michael Stürmer, Putin said there were three questions which most concerned Russia and Eastern Europe: namely, the status of Kosovo, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and American plans to build missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and suggested that all three were linked.[375] His view was that concessions by the West on one of the questions might be met with concessions from Russia on another.[375]
Putin with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002

In a January 2007 interview, Putin said Russia was in favor of a democratic multipolar world and strengthening the systems of international law.[376]

In February 2007, Putin criticized what he called the United States' monopolistic dominance in global relations, and "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations". He said the result of it is that "no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race".[377] This came to be known as the Munich Speech, and NATO secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called the speech "disappointing and not helpful."[378]

The months following Putin's Munich Speech[377] were marked by tension and a surge in rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Russian and American officials, however, denied the idea of a new cold war.[379] Putin publicly opposed plans for the U.S. missile shield in Europe and presented President George W. Bush with a counterproposal on 7 June 2007 which was declined.[380] Russia suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty on 11 December 2007.[381]

Putin opposed Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, warning that it would destabilize the whole system of international relations.[382] He described the recognition of Kosovo's independence by several major world powers as "a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries", and that "they have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face".[383] In March 2014, Putin used Kosovo's declaration of independence as a justification for recognizing the independence of Crimea, citing the so-called "Kosovo independence precedent".[384][385]

After the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Putin had good relations with American President George W. Bush, and many western European leaders. His "cooler" and "more business-like" relationship with German chancellor, Angela Merkel is often attributed to Merkel's upbringing in the former DDR, where Putin was stationed as a KGB agent.[386] He had a very friendly and warm relationship with the former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi;[387] the two leaders often described their relationship as a close friendship, continuing to organize bilateral meetings even after Berlusconi's resignation in November 2011.[388]
Putin held a meeting in Sochi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline in May 2018.
According to Putin, he, like all of Russia, has a particularly good relationship to neighboring country Finland.[389] Picture of Putin handshaking with Sauli Niinistö, the President of Finland, in August 2019.

The NATO-led military intervention in Libya in 2011 prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Putin, who said that "[UNSC Resolution 1973] is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."[390]

In late 2013, Russian-American relations deteriorated further when the United States canceled a summit for the first time since 1960 after Putin gave asylum to American Edward Snowden, who had leaked massive amounts of classified information from the NSA.[391][392]

In 2014, Russia was suspended from the G8 group as a result of its annexation of Crimea.[393][394] However, in June 2015, Putin told that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO.[395]

On 9 November 2016, Putin congratulated Donald Trump on becoming the 45th President of the United States.[396]

In December 2016, US intelligence officials (headed by James Clapper) quoted by CBS News stated that Putin approved the email hacking and cyber attacks during the U.S. election, against the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. A spokesman for Putin denied the reports.[397] Putin has repeatedly accused Hillary Clinton, who served as U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, of interfering in Russia's internal affairs,[398] and in December 2016, Clinton accused Putin of having a personal grudge against her.[399][400]

With the election of Trump, Putin's favorability in the U.S. increased. A Gallup poll in February 2017 revealed a positive view of Putin among 22% of Americans, the highest since 2003.[401] However, Putin has stated that U.S.–Russian relations, already at the lowest level since the end of the Cold War,[402] have continued to deteriorate after Trump took office in January 2017.[403]

On 18 June 2020, The National Interest published a nine thousand word essay by Putin, titled 'The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II'.[404] In the essay, Putin criticizes the western historical view of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as the start of World War II, stating that the Munich Agreement was the beginning.[405]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_ ... c_policies

[K Graham]

All we truly know is that he is a murderous tyrant who is beloved by America's Right Wing.

[MeDotOrg]

According to Tommy Tuberville, Republican Senator from the Great State of Alabama, this is the reason Russia invaded Ukraine:

He can't feed his people. It's a communist country, so he can't feed his people, so they need more farmland.

How does this man get elected to the Unites States Senate?

Perhaps by the same people who believe that Putin's actions are guided by the teachings of Jesus.

[K Graham]

How does this man get elected to the Unites States Senate?

Easy answer? He runs as a Republican.

[canpakes]

Re: Is Vladimir Putin a communist, a Christian?

He’s a kleptocrat.

[Gunnar]

Re: Is Vladimir Putin a communist, a Christian?

He’s a kleptocrat.

And a raving narcissist and egomaniac, like Trump, who thinks he can do no wrong, as long as he is the primary beneficiary.

[K Graham]

Only a [deleted] could seriously ask if Putin is a Christian.

This label doesn’t need to be casually tossed around at other board members. -cp-

[Chap]

I think the following article will help to clarify the question asked in the OP:


The antisemitism animating Putin’s claim to ‘denazify’ Ukraine
The Russian leader’s pretext for invasion recasts Ukraine’s Jewish president as a Nazi and Russian Christians as true victims of the Holocaust

Basically "It's Christianity Jim. But not as we know it."

Guardian 26 February

When Russian president Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at dawn on Thursday, he justified the “special military operation” as having the goal to “denazify” Ukraine. The justification is not tenable, but it would be a mistake simply to dismiss it.

Vladimir Putin is himself a fascist autocrat, one who imprisons democratic opposition leaders and critics. He is the acknowledged leader of the global far right, which looks increasingly like a global fascist movement.

Ukraine does have a far-right movement, and its armed defenders include the Azov battalion, a far-right nationalist militia group. But no democratic country is free of far-right nationalist groups, including the United States. In the 2019 election, the Ukrainian far right was humiliated, receiving only 2% of the vote. This is far less support than far-right parties receive across western Europe, including inarguably democratic countries such as France and Germany.

Ukraine is a democratic country, whose popular president was elected, in a free and fair election, with over 70% of the vote. That president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.

Putin’s claim that Russia is invading Ukraine to denazify it is therefore absurd on its face. But understanding why Putin justifies the invasion of democratic Ukraine in this way sheds important light on what is happening not only in eastern Europe, but worldwide.

Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by ethnic or religious minorities, liberals, feminists, immigrants, and homosexuals. The fascist leader claims the nation has been humiliated and its masculinity threatened by these forces. It must regain its former glory (and often its former territory) with violence. He offers himself as the only one who can restore it.

Central to European fascism is the idea that it is the Jews who are the agents of moral decay. According to European fascism, it is the Jews who bring a country under the domination of (Jewish) global elite, by using the tools of liberal democracy, secular humanism, feminism and gay rights, which are used to introduce decadence, weakness and impurity. Fascist antisemitism is racial rather than religious in origin, targeting Jews as a corrupt stateless race who seek global domination.

Fascism justifies its violence by offering to protect a supposedly pure religious and national identity from the forces of liberalism. In the west, fascism presents itself as the defender of European Christianity against these forces, as well as mass Muslim migration. Fascism in the west is thus increasingly hard to distinguish from Christian nationalism.

Putin, the leader of Russian Christian nationalism, has come to view himself as the global leader of Christian nationalism, and is increasingly regarded as such by Christian nationalists around the world, including in the United States. Putin has emerged as a leader of this movement in part because of the global reach of recent Russian fascist thinkers such as Alexander Dugin and Alexander Prokhanov who laid its groundwork.

It is easy to recognize, in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the roadmap laid out in recent years by Dugin and Prokhanov, major figures in Putin’s Russia. Both Dugin and Prokhanov viewed an independent Ukraine as an existential threat to their goal, which Timothy Snyder, in his 2018 book The Road to Unfreedom, describes as “a desire for the return of Soviet power in fascist form”.

The form of Russian fascism Dugin and Prokhanov defended is like the central versions of European fascism – explicitly antisemitic. As Snyder writes, “… if Prokhanov had a core belief, it was the endless struggle of the empty and abstract sea-people against the hearty and righteous land-people. Like Adolf Hitler, Prokhanov blamed world Jewry for inventing the ideas that enslaved his homeland. He also blamed them for the Holocaust.”

The dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the “real” victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians (or other non-Jewish eastern Europeans). Those who embrace Russian Christian nationalist ideology will be especially susceptible to this strain of antisemitism.

Prokhanov had a core belief, it was the endless struggle of the empty and abstract sea-people against the hearty and righteous land-people. Like Adolf Hitler, Prokhanov blamed world Jewry for inventing the ideas that enslaved his homeland. He also blamed them for the Holocaust

With this background, we can understand why Putin chose the actions he did, as well as the words he used to justify them. Ukraine has always been the primary target of those who seek to restore “Soviet power in fascist form”. Echoing familiar fascist antisemitic tropes, in a 2021 article, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev denounced Zelenskiy as disgusting, corrupt and faithless. The free democratic election of a Jewish president confirms in the fascist mind that the fascist bogeyman of liberal democracy as a tool for global Jewish domination is real.

By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism – that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation. Putin’s propaganda is not aimed at an obviously skeptical west, but rather appeals domestically to this strain of Christian nationalism.

There are broader morals here. The attack on liberal democracy in the west comes from a global fascist movement, whose center is Christian nationalism. It will be hard to disentangle this movement from antisemitism (albeit a version of antisemitism that allies with forces pushing for a Jewish nationalist state in Israel). Unsurprisingly, proponents of the view that a Christian nation needs protection and defense against liberalism, “globalism” and their supposed decadence, will be marshaled to their most violent actions when the faces of free, secular, tolerant liberal democracy prominently include Jewish ones.

[Moksha]

Think of Putin as a warlord who knows the value of kompromat tapes from Moscow hotel rooms.

This new conservative darling/best friend of Trump could also be regarded as an "evil emperor" much like Ming the Merciless or Ghengis Khan.

[Atlanticmike]

Think of Putin as a warlord who knows the value of kompromat tapes from Moscow hotel rooms.

This new conservative darling/best friend of Trump could also be regarded as an "evil emperor" much like Ming the Merciless or Ghengis Khan.

Everyone reading this knows deep down Putin would've never invaded if Trump was the one in office. Trump would've been on TV everyday, multiple times, totally scaring the hell out of Putin. And he would've been yelling at the mother xxxker on the phone, threatening him. Biden’s a joke, everyone knows it including the democrats and it’s a 100% guarantee Taiwan will be next, probably next year.? Biden is weak weak weak!!!!