Tom Washington: Let no one in this country make mistake of admiring, supporting, trusting Putin

To The Daily Sun,

Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, is a butcher and an enemy of liberal democracies and the west at large.

Putin has recently threatened to fire nuclear weapons at America and our allies. At Putin's direction, Russia is currently running a counterintelligence operation in the U.S. aimed at sowing discord and turning Americans against each other, and has been doing so for 10 years now. U.S. intelligence has also found that Russia is currently trying to flip fired U.S. government workers into Russian spies.

Putin attacked Ukraine in an unprovoked war of territorial expansion that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and recklessly pushed the world closer to global war. In that war, Putin oversaw the mass slaughter of civilians in Bucha and a drone attack on the Chernobyl power plant aimed at releasing its deadly radiation.

Putin protects and arms Iran and North Korea, both of which want the United States destroyed. Putin also supported Bashar al-Assad in Syria, who engaged in the mass torture of political enemies and prisoners, as found after he fled the country for Russia.

Free elections are not allowed in Putin's Russia, as any potentially viable opposition candidate is blocked from the ballot, exiled, imprisoned, or murdered. Russia has no freedom of press — the only "press" allowed in Russia is Putin-approved state-controlled media. When a Russian KGB operative fled Russia for the UK after having been ordered to murder a Russian businessman, Russia killed the operative, Alexander Litvinenko, with poison. Freedom of speech is similarly unprotected, as 15,000 Russians have been arrested for protesting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is, of course, unrepentant. He is our enemy. Let no one in this country make the mistake of admiring, supporting or trusting Putin. As long as he holds power, Americans are not safe.

Tom Washington

Laconia