re: #227 Belafon

Putin is not a friend of the US. He still operates as a hostile opponent. We should treat him as such.

Trump always said “wouldn’t it be great if we were friends with Russia?” Russia especially Putin was never interested in being ours. IMO Putin is a shrewd guy who used his wits to rise in the post USSR world not to being a true democrat but someone who wanted to return to the Russia of pre-1991. He’s a Russian nationalist first and foremost and he sees us building relationships with the former SRs i.e. Ukraine or satellites i.e. Poland as a threat to him and has a problem with our social liberalism that was spreading under Obama and the HRC State Department.