Putin is not a Hitler nor is he a Stalin, nor is he benign or a friend of the US.
Putin
is a KGB Colonel and an authoritarian leader with a highly nationalistic ideology who seeks to return Russia to the glory days of the Soviet Union. Putin has Russian journalists and opposition activists murdered (hundreds since 2000) and has quashed all independent media in Russia. His political party - United Russia - holds a super-majority in the Duma which renders it a rubber stamp legislature. His military is occupying Crimea, and waging active warfare in eastern Ukraine (10,000+ dead). Russian troops brought a BUK missile launcher into Ukraine and downed Malaysian Flight MH17 killing all 298 aboard. His military commits numerous war crimes in Syria, bombing civilian sectors of cities, bombing hospitals and clinics, and using banned incendiary and cluster munitions. Putin is the greatest enemy of the United States and has upped the ante to hybrid warfare attacks on our electoral system. The Russians are also currently mapping our power nodes ... the critical step up/down electric transformer stations, and nuclear facilities.
{His military is occupying Crimea, and waging active warfare in eastern Ukraine (10,000+ dead).}
In the last legitimate election (Carter was a watchdog there)
with all regions participating the Eastern provinces voted accordingly:
For Yanukovich, the Russian leading candidate
Crimea 78.24%
Donetsk region 90.44%
Luhansk region 88.96%
After the coup it's no wonder Crimea upped it's percentages to the 90's thus immitating
the pluraity of Donetsk & Luhansk the 2 breakaway provinces. By the way there are other
eastern regions with strong Russian ties maybe they eventually will rise up against the Kiev Junta
Kharkiv region 71.35%
Zaporizhzhia region 71.50%
Odesa region 74.14%
Mykolaiv region 71.53%
Ukraine is as split as the US was in 1861, Russia & Putin didn't influence
the last legit election in Ukraine nor the Crimean referendum after the disastrous
for Ukraine Kiev Maidan.
The illegal coup deposing Yanukovich alienated the people of Donetsk and Lugansk
& Crimea who, having a president THEY voted for, they rather thought Ukraine had a democracy already.
Most of the provinces east of the Dniper wanted no part of the Coup. Odessa voted 2 to 1 for
Yanokovich & a Russian leaning Ukraine. In Odessa the new Kiev government showed its true colors.
Some 1,000 Ukrainian rightists, led by the notorious Right Sector, surrounded, stormed, and burned
the House of Trade Unions in Odessa , killing 39 pro-Russia demonstrators in the building.
Russia led by Putin decided that they didn't want a repeat of this brutality in other Russian speaking
Eastern Provinces and took action.