Born Oct. 7, 1952, Vladimir Putin will turn 70 this year. Perhaps he is looking ahead to pages in the book of history on which he would be lauded as the leader who reconstituted the USSR. And who knows, I often wonder, what friendship and secrets he shared with erstwhile U.S. President Trump via their unrecorded get-togethers of the 2020s and earlier. Obviously, he (Putin) was mistaken in assuming general weakness and self-serving stupidity of the U.S. due to his association with Trump (and due to the latter’s actions).

Putin meanwhile has managed to completely shut down the Free Press in Russia, and the people there know only what the government tells them. So no wonder he’s beginning to get favorable poll numbers in Moscow and environs. Along the way critics, including journalists, have been shot, poisoned or imprisoned. A 15-year prison sentence for dissemination of anti-government information now seems to be doing the trick. Trump, meanwhile, who can’t tailor the news his way, just refers to the Press in general, as “The enemy of the people.” And “fake news” is a label he pins on anything critical of his activities.

“Twentieth-century dictators — notably, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao — had all denounced their critics, especially the press, as ‘enemies of the people.’ Their goal was to delegitimize the work of the press as ‘fake news’ and create confusion in the public mind about what’s real and what isn’t; what can be trusted and what can’t be. That, it seems, is also Trump’s goal.” — Kalb, Marvin: “Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy.” Brookings Institution Press, 2018.

Meanwhile I’m with Brennan and others viewing Putin’s War as something we do not wish to see escalated into World War lII — especially a nuclear conflict. I have a friend whose son flies U.S. fighter jets. For starters, I’ll sleep better nights knowing he’s not flying the skies over Ukraine — even though it’s nice having him on our side in case of other emergencies. Putin, meanwhile, would undoubtedly escalate the conflict at the slightest provocation as he has put himself in a must-win situation.

Thank God we have Biden rather than Trump in the White House.