Never heard Putin called a liberal before. He's a reactionary right wing autocrat social conservative. Why he would want to do that is in the text you quoted:
"to deter western parasitism"
Empowering the targets of the USA to defend themselves would be a good strategic move for Russia. Keeping the US with its hands full etc.
I mean, he is a lib. Even all the "reactionary right wing" hysteria about him- while not entirely inaccurate- fails to mention that he's not really more conservative or reactionary (far, far less reactionary, actually, particularly when talking about economic and foreign policy) than the typical conservative in the west. And he's certainly far less reactionary than the western-backed alternatives (Navalny for instance, an out-and-about fascist)
Libs are reactionary, and they are right wing. And liberalism (which stands first and foremost for liberal economics) is entirely compatible with conservatism, and even fascism.
Never heard Putin called a liberal before. He's a reactionary right wing autocrat social conservative. Why he would want to do that is in the text you quoted:
"to deter western parasitism"
Empowering the targets of the USA to defend themselves would be a good strategic move for Russia. Keeping the US with its hands full etc.
I mean, he is a lib. Even all the "reactionary right wing" hysteria about him- while not entirely inaccurate- fails to mention that he's not really more conservative or reactionary (far, far less reactionary, actually, particularly when talking about economic and foreign policy) than the typical conservative in the west. And he's certainly far less reactionary than the western-backed alternatives (Navalny for instance, an out-and-about fascist)
Libs are reactionary, and they are right wing. And liberalism (which stands first and foremost for liberal economics) is entirely compatible with conservatism, and even fascism.
But libs pretend, even to themselves, to be progressives. Vlad does not.
Progressive and moderate libs do. Conservative liberals don't.