Paul Ingrassia is President Trump’s new liaison to the Department of Justice. In April 2023, between Trump’s administrations, he wrote, “Without Trump, Putin is the most powerful leader in the international arena standing up for traditional Christianity and Western values — and it’s not even close.” This is a common line of thought in America. And now, obviously, it is in the White House — certainly in the form of Mr. Ingrassia.

Others of us, however, do not believe that Putin is a champion of “traditional Christianity and Western values.” We think he is a criminal dictator, who kills, maims, imprisons, and tortures innocent people every day. His victims include Russians, Ukrainians, and others. Putin is a plain heir to the Soviet leaders he once served.

As Memorial points out, there are more political prisoners in Russia today than there were in the late Soviet period. (Memorial was the leading civil-society and human-rights organization in Russia. It was founded by Andrei Sakharov and his allies. The Kremlin, of course, has banned Memorial, and the organization now operates in exile.)

Putin’s Russia is a terror-state. Day after day, Russian forces assault Ukrainian civilians, in an effort to destroy and re-subjugate Ukraine. It is right to know some names — names of some of the victims. Maybe some of their faces, too. Otherwise, the dead, the murdered, are swallowed up in statistics.

Russia attacked Kyiv on New Year’s Day. The heading of one article reads, “After Russian drone strike, Ukraine mourns the loss of two more scientists.” They were Ihor Zyma and Olesia Sokur, a married couple. He was a neurobiologist, she a cancer specialist. They worked at the leading university in Kyiv (named after Taras Shevchenko).

On January 17, Russia attacked Kryvyi Rih. That city is a frequent target of the Russians, probably because it is the hometown of Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president. Among the victims was Oleksiy Akymenko, age 20, a student. He was killed alongside his grandmother, Alyona, 61.

To see a picture of Oleksiy, and read a little about him, go here or here.

Also killed in Kryvyi Rih was Oksana Sukhorukova, a music teacher, age 45. Her husband, Ihor, sitting in the car beside her, survived. He is a refugee to Kryvyi Rih from Kherson. In 2022, he lost his first wife. Oksana was his second, and stepmother to three children. (January 17, when Oksana was killed, happened to be the birthday of one of the children.)

To see Ihor, discussing this horror, go here. (His face is still bloody.)

Bear in mind, these are people just going about their daily lives, same as we do: shopping, attending school, working, and so on. They simply want to live their lives, in their own country, as free men and women.

The cities of Ukraine — Mariupol, Bucha, etc. — have been the scenes of naked aggression and butchery. Russia is attempting to terrorize and subdue a neighbor, in a general effort to rebuild the old, lost empire. If Putin is able to swallow Ukraine, he will get hungry again, soon. This has nothing to do with Christianity or Western values. It is the old, familiar antithesis of those things.

After the January 17 attack on Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky said, “Each such terrorist attack is another reminder of who we are dealing with. Russia will not stop on its own — it can only be stopped by joint pressure. The pressure of everyone in the world who values life.” I believe this is correct.