The Washington Post's Lee Hockstader counts the ways in which October was a good month for the Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin:
"October was probably the best month for the Russian president since he unleashed his blood-soaked invasion of Ukraine 20 months earlier. If the discrete events that broke his way constitute a trend, Kyiv faces a menacingly greater chance of losing the war — a scenario that would pose enormous risks to the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not to mention the lives of millions of Ukrainians.
That should seize the West’s attention.
In the first few hours of Oct. 1, Moscow time, Congress voted to keep the U.S. government running, but only after a scaled-back $6 billion package of military and civilian aid for Ukraine was stripped from the legislation. That reflected Kyiv’s crumbling support among House Republicans and was a portent of more to come.
Just the day before, Putin had received good news from Slovakia, a small European country with the potential to cause big mischief. It elected a new government whose prime minister, pro-Russian populist Robert Fico, has suggested he would further block European Union military and economic assistance to Ukraine. [snip]
A week after Fico’s electoral victory, Hamas murdered 1,400 Israelis, diverting the world’s, and Washington’s, attention from Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine. [snip]
The war’s deadlock suits Putin’s strategy to exhaust Ukraine and outlast the West. It bore further fruit on Capitol Hill when Republicans elected a new House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (La.), who has voted repeatedly against funding for Ukraine. Immediately after being sworn in, he said he would block President Biden’s effort to tether a new $61 billion aid package for Ukraine to a new weapons package for Israel." (our emphasis)
Of course the crown jewel that Putin is seeking lies a mere 12 months away:
"But the Russian dictator is playing the long game, attuned to every fissure in the transatlantic alliance. And the greatest potential crack of all — a potential election victory for Donald Trump, who is no friend of Ukraine’s — looms just 12 months off. That, for Putin, could be game, set and match." (our emphasis)
That jewel, indicted for 91 felonies at the Federal and State levels, needs to be in prison, and not in the Oval Office doing Putin's bidding and unleashing "vengeance" on the patriots that have opposed him.
(photo: "Just wait for my second term, Vlad!")
