After the USSR fell, there was no accounting for the Soviet horrors committed, no lustration or truth commissions. Do not prepare only for The Hague war crime trials of Putin's officials after this war, but for every Russian to know these stories.
Despite being utterly defeated in the Cold War & the myth of Russian humiliation popularized by Putin & his propagandists, Russia was invited to join the civilized world, aided and with its pride as a once-great power indulged. It was a huge mistake, the original sin.
Instead of deprogramming generations of Russians and ripping out the security service structure root and branch, it was allowed to lurk in the shadows until Putin & his backers seized their chance. It cannot happen again.
After over 20 years of revanchism and exploitation, Russian patriotism is a perverse disease, an anti-Russian fascism called Putinism. It must be confronted and destroyed so Russians and Russia can safely join the civilized world.
I have always said that Putin's elite's looted wealth in the West should be seized and held in trust to rebuild a democratic Russia. Now it must go to rebuilding Ukraine first. Stolen money and stolen lives.
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