But unlike Putin he has not assassinated political rivals or activists yet.
Firs of all, nonsense. Info war. Propaganda. No proof.
Second of all, so what if he did? XD It's politics, man!
Let me tell you something so you would understand Russia better: we might pretend to be a modern democratic society, but most of us are tsarists to the bone. Even if you somehow managed to proove the false (or not so false) facts of Putin assassinating his rivals (who do you mean by that, btw?), the people would just be like, "so what? Those people were against our president, our motherland, etc. Good they were disposed of".
I'm not saying killing people is good, but neither is politics. Becaause politics means killing people.
Because if we don't kill (dispose of) traitors and spies, we're gonna have more nineties. I was born in the nineties, slightly after the fall of USSR. It was hell. I still carry a knife around.
And let us be quite earnest. Philosophically, democrasy is not our cup of tea. Capitalism is neither. We just have to play by the rules of the outer world so that we don't get killed.
She would have been very strict with Russia in the diplomatic sense, but in my opinion she would not have been the one to actually declare the war.
Why be strict with Russia in the first place? Because we took over Crimea so that Nato wouldn't build their warbases there and take over the black sea? Don't you think Nato has enough warbases already?
We just don't want you to take over the world.
You're not chatting in russian with me, huh? Why do you think it is the other way around?
And why do we have more dollars than gold in our country's stash?
West is behind the fall of the great USSR, that's why, and the crisis in Ukraine too.
Before you disagree, listen to their losungs, "Ukraine is Europe" style.
But we should certainly stop this quarrel before it starts.
Our great countries are at war by idea, and always will be, like dream and reality, reason and intuition, earth and sky.
And although earth and sky are so different, they coexist, interact, and look beautiful together.
Maybe Russia and America can as well?
But what I wanted to say was. No matter who declares the war. What matters is when the war starts, I get an AK47 and am sent to kill your friends and neighbours. You dig it? Me not.
I'd rather get a bottle of wine and have a party to celebrate a common victory of ours. Like, against terrorism. Or illnesses. Or something generally more worthy of defeating than innocent people...