The ever-aggrieved Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin laments the demise of the Soviet Union, once calling it the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. He views Ukraine as an illegitimate nation, and part of a "greater Russia" that he envisions would stretch from Poland and the Baltic countries to China, and from Ukraine to Georgia and Central Asia -- at a minimum. His seething resentment of the deals struck in the 1990s to give independence to former Soviet "republics" after the collapse of his beloved Soviet Union have triggered his aggression against Ukraine.
In a blatant sign of Putin's delusional designs on his Ukrainian neighbors, he announced today that Russia will be fast-tracking Russian citizenship to not only the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, but the whole of Ukraine:
"As Russian missiles struck a key Ukrainian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin expanded a fast-track procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians on Monday, another effort to strengthen Moscow’s influence over war-torn Ukraine.
Until recently, only residents of Ukraine’s separatist eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as residents of the southern Zaporizhzhia and the Kherson regions, large parts of which are now under Russian control, were eligible to apply for the simplified passport procedure. [snip]
The Russian passport move appears to be part of Putin’s political influence strategy, which has also involved introduction of the Russian ruble in occupied territory in Ukraine and could eventually result in the annexation of more Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation. Russia already annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014." (our emphasis)
Putin's arrogance in thinking that any patriotic Ukrainian would take him up on the offer is shocking, but in his warped view of the world he believes himself to be an historic figure akin to Czar Peter the Great destined to create a "Greater Russia" empire. This latest farce of his demonstrates that he truly believes that, and that the people of Ukraine are just waiting for his benevolent rule over them to begin.
