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Much of Putin’s moral authority at home, in fact, comes from his judgment abroad. Putin had supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (after 9/11, he saw the U.S. as an ally against Muslim terrorism) but he turned against the U.S. when it invaded Iraq, a war he saw as unjustifiable and sure to inflame Sunni Islamic fundamentalism. Among the Iraq war’s many tragic results has been the decimation of virtually the whole of Iraq’s once-vibrant, 1.5-million-strong Christian communities. Putin on similar grounds opposed the West’s overthrow of Libya’s Gaddafi and Egypt’s Mubarak — a protector of Egypt’s Christian Copts — and supports Egypt’s new president, Sisi, another protector of Egypt’s Christians.

Christianity and the Russian Orthodox Church, in fact, have loomed large in most of Putin’s foreign policy decisions. The West’s attempts to pull Ukraine away from Russia created deep resentment because of the cultural ties between the nations, not least those between their sister Orthodox Churches.

The Crimean Peninsula’s return to Russia was also deeply symbolic, as Putin explained in an address to Russia’s federal assembly: “It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus or Korsun, as ancient Russian chroniclers called it, that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptized before bringing Christianity to Rus…. Christianity was a powerful spiritual unifying force that helped involve various tribes and tribal unions of the vast Eastern Slavic world in the creation of a Russian nation and Russian state. It was thanks to this spiritual unity that our forefathers for the first time and forevermore saw themselves as a united nation … Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilizational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism.”

Putin’s Russia is not the soulless Soviet Union, but a major Western country that takes its religion seriously, and itself seriously, and is united in its appreciation for a leader who embodies both.

Lawrence Solomon is a policy analyst with Toronto-basedProbe International.LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com