On the Russian Manifest Destiny

A FB friend, Carolyn Rabe Tinney, has been sharing some analysis pieces with me, 

One is an analysis of Putin's strategy in the Ukraine that explains his state of mind in more clear terms than simply "delusional":

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398089.php?fbclid=IwAR2ZI6Z-VUN0cmXNVobEarGC98JrLUT8L1e8bpoKvVVlT6y9s63TZmB3n9c#398089

Another is an explanation of the mindset he has expressed, of carrying on the destiny of a thousand year-old empire:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/12/putins-thousand-year-war/?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR11zm_yHHdPPCtywXutJDDd_HYKzgIVnDZliGkg883HMFz6FdMcVQTE-x4

So I am finding myself of the opinion that the best prayer I can pray for the people of the Ukraine -- and the people of our world -- is for the leaders of Russia to have their hearts softened and their minds enlightened as to the futility of power politics.

On power, I reference a peculiarly Mormon scripture from the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, Abraham chapter 3. Read the whole chapter, note especially v. 19, in context.

https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/abr/3 

No matter how big you get, there is always someone bigger to take you down. 

And ultimately, there is God.

Even if you don't believe in God, there is nature -- time and death. 

Fighting them is futile.

Nothing we build in this world can ever be permanent. Not empires, not our own strength. Empires fall. Humans, every human, eventually gets weak and dies. 

Believing in your own superhumanity is exactly the same as taking the comic books of the western world seriously. This is the fatal sin of the very Nazism they despise.

So we need God to find someone to sit Putin and the members of the Federal Assembly down and ask them, what will Russia do after they die? Where do they expect to find someone to carry on the destined legacy they have convinced themselves is theirs? 

Why do they think they have a chance to succeed in building a permanent Russian empire when every Tzar before them has failed? 

And what use is it to build an empire that will ultimately crumble to dust?

But that is precisely the question that ultimately leads, not to Democracy, but to governments that recognize that the freedom and sovereignty of the individual citizen -- the will of the people -- is the only real, viable basis for government.

And it seems to be the question they refuse to face, I suppose because they think it will cost them their glorious destiny to admit it is just dust. If they could only face the question and find a real answer, how much greater a destiny could they fulfill?