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Today, I was able to understand myself and explain it to my colleague how Putin is committing a mortal sin when he orders his army to invade Ukraine. The most common accusation is that he's violating "Thou shall not murder" commandment (Exodus 20:12). But an apologist may reasonably deny the sin because a) he doesn't commit the murder himself [ his soldiers do]; and b) it's a war and not every war killing is a murder.

But it's undeniable that as a professional KGB officer under the Soviet regime he was trained to "bear false witness against thy neighbour" (Exodus 20:12). He did it against dissidents back then and he continued doing it in Russia when he took over FSB in 1999 and then became the country's president later.

Today, he commits the same sin with regard to Ukraine when he demands "denazification." That is, he bears a false witness against the people of Ukraine and their elected government, by accusing them of genocide. It's not just an exaggeration on his part; you know, the kind of exaggeration sales people engage in when selling you their stinking product. Rather, it's a deliberate KGB-style lie and a libel. He had repeatedly committed this sin before and he's committing it now. If hell exists, he goes directly there after his death. The sooner, the better.

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Also, he committed the same sin when he implied that the Ukrainian Army was involved in shooting down MH17.

Comments

[tijd]

"Thou shalt not steal" is there too: stealing money from Russian people to become allegedly the richest man in the world and stealing territory from other countries.

Timothy Snyder explains the abuse of the "genocide" language:

BLITZER: As you know, Putin is claiming that Ukraine's leadership, in particular, President Zelensky is a neo-Nazi. You point out that it's not only absurd, but it's actually cruel, considering the fact that Zelensky is Jewish. He's a grandchild of Holocaust survivors. Talk a little bit about this.
TIMOTHY SNYDER, AUTHOR, "ON TYRANNY," PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: Yes, this charge of de-Nazification, it's meant to confound us, and discourage us, and confuse us. But the basic reality, is that Putin has everything turned around.
Ukraine is a democratic country, not an authoritarian one, like Russia. It has a Jewish president, who won more than 70 percent of the vote, which is, I have to say, unthinkable, in pretty much any other country, in the world. It's a multicultural bilingual society. And that's what makes it unbearable, for Putin.
Precisely the fact, that somebody, from a national minority, come out of nowhere, and be elected president? That's what's despicable for Putin. Because Putin just can't imagine that someone, who's in power, can voluntarily lose power. And that's what he's punishing Zelensky for.
BLITZER: What is his narrative, all about? I'm talking about Putin. What is he trying to achieve, his bottom line goal?
SNYDER: Well, his bottom line goal is to - there are two. The first is, militarily, he wants to come into Kyiv, arrest the political and civic leaders, of the Ukrainian State, and get them out of power, and try them, in some way, probably.
And this is where the genocide language comes in. I think it's very likely. And he's said as much that he intends to use the genocide, and de-Nazification language, to set up some kind of kangaroo court, which would serve the purpose, of condemning these people to death, or condemning them to prison, or incarceration.
But meanwhile, because he's using the language of de-Nazification and genocide, he's also diluting, or trivializing, or perverting, these concepts, which are so important to us, so important our recollection of the war, and then our sense of what we can learn from history.
BLITZER: Another really awful remark that Putin made, and he's made so many, has been that Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, shouldn't even exist, at all. How dangerous is a statement, like that?
SNYDER: It goes back to your first question. I mean, that is straight out of Hitler's playbook, 1938, 1939, to claim that a democratic neighboring state is some kind of artificial creation that doesn't deserve to exist.
The whole basis of post-war international law is that States recognize one another, as States. It's not for dictators, to decide, who's a real country, and who's not a real country, who's more equal than someone else, who's big brother, and who's a little brother.
When you say that a state doesn't exist, as he said, when you say that a nation doesn't exist, as he said? What you're doing is you're setting yourself up, as the person, who has the right, to destroy that state, and the right to destroy that nation, which ties together with all of this. Because, the way you destroy a nation, is you invade it, and you take away its leadership, which is, I'm afraid, what Putin has been planning to do.
BLITZER: You think he's going to try to capture and kill President Zelensky?
SNYDER: Yes. I believe that - I believe that that's been the goal, from the beginning. And, I think, it's pretty clear, in his language. And when we think, about trying to stop Putin, that's the particular thing that we should be thinking about.
And, by the way, we should be looking, with admiration and courage, at Volodymyr Zelensky himself, at his sheer physical courage, you know? I mean, Putin is someone, who has to be 50 feet away from the French President.
Zelensky, under fire, stays in his capital, takes selfie videos, of himself, right and remains with his people. Whatever happens next, that's an example of just simple physical courage, which, I think, we ought to be remembering.
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/se/date/2022-02-25/segment/01