Interesting how we both see what is wrong in our own governments, but not as clearly what is wrong in other governments.

I don't support Putin, but I do expect him to act somewhat rationally, at least not trapped in a cult-like moral mass delusion like the West is trapped in. Every leader in the West has to prove how moral they are in order to stay in the club, and so they do these dysfunctional things to signal morality. It's very cultish.

My father's family came from Ukraine. Odessa. German farmers. Great grandparents killed around 1905-1910 time period by Russians apparently when they protested taxes (AFAIK Katherine had promised them autonomy). So the remaining family left to the USA.