Thanks to American negotiator Steve Witkoff, Vladimir Putin is lastly being acknowledged as the nice, selfless humanitarian he is.
“You are a humanitarian, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you,” Witkoff said Tuesday.
Certainly, Putin’s legacy is a file of altruistic achievement that can be neither denied nor surpassed.
The KGB alum loves his nation and its folks so deeply that after more than two and a half many years in their service, he still won’t retire from his exceedingly traumatic day job at the Kremlin.
He loves his neighbors so much that he invitations them, rather insistently, to reside under his benevolent rule.
And he loves Americans so much that he usually won’t let them go house.
A person is only as good as he is to his household, though, and Putin’s remedy of even the most grating of his fellow Russians has been exemplary.
Just ask Sergei Yushenkov, the liberal chief shot useless outside of his house in 2003 only a few hours after his celebration had been formally licensed for the upcoming election cycle.
Or Alexander Litvinenko, the whistleblower who Putin remembered most well-liked polonium in his tea and, in his thoughtfulness, ensured that he had it served to him all the means over in London.
Or Boris Nemtsov, the opposition chief who met the same destiny as Yushenkov in 2015.
Or Alexei Navalny, the would-be reformer despatched to an Arctic penal colony where he perished with South American dart frog poison in his system.
Putin never forgets the little folks, either; his pressured conscription system sends younger males to new and thrilling locations, like the entrance strains of his conflict of aggression on Ukraine, where 450,000 Russians have died and 1.4 million have been counted as casualties as of a July estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
On the other facet of that battle, there are another half-million-plus casualties and somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 useless.
More than 17,000 civilians have been confirmed useless by the United Nations, which concedes that the precise quantity of harmless blood spilt is much, much larger.
And talking of innocents, the younger Russians have been tasked with abducting even youthful Ukrainians they discover.
Estimates recommend tens of hundreds of kids have been shipped off to “re-education camps.”
The figures don’t do justice to the tales, though.
A deliberate Russian attack on Maternity Hospital No. 3 in Mariupol, inflicting 4 deaths, 17 accidents and a stillbirth.
Women as outdated as 75 and women as younger as 4 raped by Russian troopers.
The abstract execution of POWs.
Truly, there is no restrict to what Putin is keen to do to, er, for his fellow man.
Then there are the Americans he’s taken a liking to.
Americans like Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in 2023 on bogus espionage expenses, subjected to a sham present trial and sentenced to 16 years in jail.
Like Paul Whelan, a Marine Corps veteran arrested in 2018 on more bogus expenses, sentenced to a equally absurd 16-year sentence and despatched to a labor camp.
Like Brittney Griner, the WNBA star sentenced to 9 years in a penal colony over vape cartridges.
And like Stephen Hubbard, the 74-year-old veteran and retired trainer who could be seen being crushed with a sandal in one video recorded after he was taken prisoner in 2022.
Gershkovich and Whelan were only launched upon the return of detained Russian brokers who had truly dedicated crimes, like FSB murderer Vadim Krasikov.
And likewise, Griner was swapped for Viktor Bout, a convicted terrorist recognized as the “Merchant of Death.”
Hubbard was lastly launched on Wednesday, a few days after the Trump administration blocked sanctions that were set to take impact under the Lindsey Graham Act.
If Putin didn’t worth the firm of his American associates, why would he demand so much to let them go?
You are a humanitarian, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you.