It rankles Mr. Putin that Ukraine would seek to join the West not merely because he wants it as a satellite state. He also can’t afford to allow life to a neighboring Slav state which has even a smidgen of democratic development. His Russian people might get dangerous ideas. It’s not Western arms that threaten Putin; it’s Western values.
Dennis Prager in Hour 1 of The Dennis Prager Show on 7 March 2022, reading from a Wall Street Journal weekend-opinion piece involving an interview with Robert Service, “a veteran historian of Russia, a professor emeritus at St. Antony’s College, Oxford and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution”
Rebekah Koffler points out in her book Putin’s Playbook that Vladimir Putin is now a former Communist, given that he eventually disavowed his membership in the Communist Party. Still, he continues to share his former party’s hatred of Western values.