There are many ways to think about the Russian invasion of Ukraine- Putin trying to restore the Soviet empires boundaries. Russia’s revenge for being ignored after being the world’s second leading superpower, once the Soviet Union collapsed. Putin’s poll numbers plunging so he Wags the Dog and starts a war to raise his approval and stay in power.
But the one that strikes me now, is to what degree this is a religious war. Our own right wing nationalist white supremacist Christians in America have long seen Putin as a stern example of a white Christian leader who hates the same things they do, especially especially gay and women’s rights. The Russian Orthodox Christian leader has apparently blessed this war against what he sees as Western immorality and depredations. White hyper-masculine macho men in both America and Russia are just terrified and disgusted by gay men, and are driven to bigotry, cruelty, insurrection, and war. My bet is they are terrified of their own repressed sexual urges, however small. Their need to be seen as big and strong and scary causes so much pain and destruction. I would feel more sorry for them if they weren’t so destructive.
Help protect us from religious fanatics, please. Their religions just seem to be the cover stories for their agendas of brutal domination and intolerance, which seems to me to be their twisted response to their own fears of “weakness” and being less than Manly Men.
