Vladimir Putin is an old-fashioned American liberal. He believes in reason, good will, working things out, and agreements despite having zero evidence that any such reciprocating belief exists in the West.

Putin’s illusions have caused him and Russia extraordinary difficulties. Russia is currently at war in Ukraine, although Putin still doesn’t seem to realize it, referring to it as a “limited military operation” despite the obvious fact that Russia is at war with NATO which includes the US.

It is sad that Putin, a person with good intentions, doesn’t have his counterparts in the Western world.

Now it comes to light that the British and Ukrainian governments planned to assassinate both Russia’s President Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov at the Navy Day parade in St Petersburg. https://news.mail.ru/politics/62240282/?frommail=1

In my columns I have several times mentioned that Putin and Trump are candidates for assassination. The recent attempt on Trump, which has been removed from the “news,” has now been matched by the statement of Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Russian national television that Belousov called US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and squashed the assassination plan, explaining, apparently, that World War III would be the result.

Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “There is no doubt that the assassination attempt was planned with the participation of the Anglo-Saxon masters of Kiev.”

Still, Putin wants to negotiate the end of the Ukrainian conflict. How precisely do you negotiate with people who are trying to assassinate you?

Dmitry Medvedev, President of Russia during the Putin Interregnum, currently deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council, seems to have come to a clear vision. Here are his latest words, and one wonders if Putin hears them:

“From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature. We can and should go further into what still exists as Ukraine. To Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev. To Kiev and further. There should be no restrictions in terms of recognized borders.”

In other words, the nonsensical “limited military operation” should be over and done with. It is time to get serious.

The liberalism in which Putin believes no longer exists in the West. So why is Putin relying on it?

I raise these questions because it appears that the combination of Washington’s provocations and Russian restraint is leading to a terrible war that is in no one’s interest.