Ask Comrades

It's mainly just religion. They aren't a worker's state so there are bound to be contradictions.

Maybe it's a reactionary response to the US empire pushing it so heavily around the world. The idea that the US is for something probably means its bad for anyone not in the empire might be the thinking. If another country had tried to do the same thing anywhere in the US empire back in the 90s you could bet there would be a reactionary retrenching backlash in the opposing direction in the US too.

I could also be way off base.

One could argue about the “Third Rome” theory, if you subscribe to that, that says Imperial Russia was the logical continuation of the Roman Empire, due to Ivan the Great marrying Constantine XI’s niece Sophia. By that logic, after the Ottomans sacked “Rome” (Constantinople, but the residents called themselves Romans; we call them ‘the Byzantine Empire’ so we don’t have to admit Muslims took down the Roman Empire), that left Ivan, by marriage, the last remaining caesar/czar, a title that was passed down to his and Sophia’s heirs.

Perhaps Putin is trying to call back to Imperial Russia to entrench himself. Perhaps he just wants to score points with the Russian Orthodox Church and we’re overthinking it.

Or, my guess, his advisors said it would please the oligarchs to tacitly approve his continued capitalist rule.