Putin's Killings, DT's respect

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Of the many troubling aspects of the 45th president, perhaps the worst is his close relationship to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

He expressed respect for Vladimir Putin in an interview aired on Superbowl Sunday and dismissed objections by Bill O'Reilly that Putin is a killer. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-gives-a-boost-to-putins-propaganda-1486426175

"President Trump’s expression of 'respect' for Vladimir Putin in an interview that aired over the weekend, and his comparison of extrajudicial killings by the Putin regime to American actions, has ushered in a new era in U.S.-Russian relations. Never before has an American president implied that political murder is acceptable or that the US is guilty of similar crimes," writes David Satter in the Wall Street Journal on February 7.

On February 2, two days before the interview was taped, Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned for the second time in Russia.  He is a vocal opponent of the Putin regime and was the first to expose corruption and targeted killing in the Putin regime in Russia.  He has now wakened from his coma.

His wife, Yevgeniya Kara-Murza, lives in Virginia with their three young children, while her husband makes frequent trips to Russia.

Last month, Mr. Kara-Murza submitted a letter critical of Mr. Putin’s government to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during cabinet confirmation hearings for Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state.

“There are higher risks than slander or imprisonment for those who oppose the regime,” Mr. Kara-Murza wrote. In Russia, he had been traveling to provincial cities to show a documentary about another Russian politician, Boris Y. Nemtsov, who was shot and killed on a Moscow bridge two years ago.

Kara-Murza runs a blog, World Affairs, to expose abuses by the Putin regime. 

He is also a coordinator of Open Russia, an NGO founded by former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which promotes human rights and  democracy in Russia.

Russians successfully killed at Putin's behest include:

• Alexander Litvinenko, killed by radioactive poisoning in November 2006, 
• Boris Nemtsov, who was shot on a street close to the Kremlin in February 2015, and
• Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009. 

The president's "readiness to condone murder in the pursuit of an ill-advised U.S.-Russia partnership suggests that he doesn't see the distinction between defensive war and the murder of one's own people to hold on to power," concludes Satter.

We need to increase our letters, emails, phone calls, and demonstrations to oppose 45. He is a shame to all Americans.