Why is Russia allegedly threatening Ukraine? It appears that, like Saddam before him, Putin hates them for their freedom.

Ah yes, Putin hates democracy and rule of law, and how it's flourishing in Ukraine.
Except that this is total bullsh*t.
This was just two months ago.

The United States and the European Union have expressed frustration with Ukraine as the nation continues to drag its feet on electing the chief of a unit responsible for prosecuting corrupt officials.

Washington and Brussels have tied significant financial and military aid to Kyiv’s progress on reforms, including battling corruption, which many experts say is one of the major factors hindering Ukraine’s aspiration of joining the bloc.

On October 9, Ukraine again failed to move forward with the process for choosing the next head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) after several members of the selection committee did not show up, preventing a quorum.

The process of selecting a new head -- which activists say should have taken several months at best -- has now lasted more than a year due to repeated quorum failures and other excuses.

Ukraine is famously corrupt. So the "Russia hates them for their freedom" line is pretty weak.
That brings us to today's top news from Ukraine.

The National Bureau of Investigation has accused the former leader of "committing treason" and supporting "terrorist organizations" — the latter of which is a reference to pro-Russian separatists in eastern breakaway provinces.

Investigators said Poroshenko helped separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions sell around $55 million (€48.7 million) worth of coal to Kyiv. The transactions allegedly took place while he served as president in 2014 - 2015.

If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison and have his property appropriated.
The case against Poroshenko is related to similar charges that were filed against pro-Russian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk. He has been under house arrest for several months.

Poroshenko came in after the Maiden Revolution, prosecuted the war against the Russian-backed separatists the hardest, and tried to get Ukraine into NATO, while opposing any serious moves towards peace with Russia.
So calling him a Russia-loving traitor is a bit hard to believe.
It looks a lot more like corrupt Game of Thrones-style politics.

Meanwhile, this is the headline from earlier this year.

Hundreds of Ukrainians attended marches celebrating Nazi SS soldiers, including the first such event in Kyiv.

The so-called Embroidery March took place in the capital on April 28, the 78th anniversary of the establishment of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician. It was a force set up under German occupation auspices comprised of ethnic Ukrainian and German volunteers and conscripts. The marchers held banners displaying the unit’s symbol.

The Kyiv march by about 300 people was an import from the western city of Lviv, which for several years has hosted such events. A day earlier, hundreds attended a larger Embroidery March there.

Ukraine has a large minority of ethnic Russians, who oppose the glorification of Nazi collaborators. Such actions were taboo in Ukraine until the early 2000s, when nationalists demanded and obtained state recognition for collaborators as heroes for their actions against the Soviet Union, which dominated Ukraine until 1991.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Ukrainian Jews, who according to a 2020 demographic study number about 47,000, have protested the veneration of the 1st Galician and other collaborators. But the collaborators’ popularity has soared following the 2014 war with Russia.

I find this astounding, considering the horrific atrocities that the Nazis committed in Ukraine.

In related news, Biden and the Republican senators have cut a deal to sanction anyone associated with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Since everyone in Russia is already sanctioned, this means that we'll be sanctioning our allies.

The Senate will vote next month on legislation from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to impose Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions as part of a deal that allowed Democrats to clear dozens of President Biden's nominees.

Moscow is not impressed. In fact, Russia is moving to tighten the screws on Europe.

Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom slashed its gas supplies to Europe over the weekend, sending prices surging as the continent prepares for a week of sub-zero temperatures.

Shipments through the Yamal pipeline — which runs through Belarus and Poland to Germany — were at their lowest for at least a month over the weekend, Interfax reported, citing market data. Daily shipments fell from 27 million cubic meters (mcm) Friday to 5.2 mcm and 4.7 mcm on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Gazprom also booked only minimal additional capacity on the transit route Monday — 3.8 mcm — worrying markets as gas prices rose across Europe once more.

Gas prices climbed above $1,700 per thousand cubic meters on Monday — 70% higher than the levels seen in September when politicians across the continent first started worrying about a possible Russian squeeze on supplies ahead of the winter.
The Yamal pipeline operates at a full capacity of 89 mcm per day, meaning flows were operating at only 4% of capacity Monday.

EUROPEAN ENERGY CRISIS: Day-ahead electricity prices across much of Europe set fresh and frightening record highs. Germany jumps to an incredible €431 per MWh. At current prices, energy-intensive industries will rather shut down and re-sell their power on the spot market pic.twitter.com/GZFaxLEJei

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) December 20, 2021

Meanwhile, Russia is so confident that Europe will fold, they've begun to fill the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with gas.
Do they know something that GOP Senators don't know?