The Political Right has been in Putin's Pocket for a while
No, they've been in Russian oligarch's pockets
Putinsim is not personalismo. Peronism, Fidelistas, and other caudillos have defined Latin American political strongmen and a smattering of African political leaders. Were it not for the culture indoctrinated into U.S. military officers in America, Trumpism could have easily become one.
Putin is merely the front man for an evil oligarchy. And while the world unites against Putin, the oligarchy is still enjoying some level of anonymity. Their interests go beyond Putin’s military actions and well beyond taking Ukraine into the Russian Federation to take advantage of its natural resources and industrial capabilities. They want to destabilize the West and undermine democracies to increase their influence, power, and pocketbooks.
A recent report by the Byline Times detailed the lengths that the oligarchs have taken to basically buy their way into the Conservative (Tory) Party in the U.K. A fair reading of Adam Bienkov’s February 24th report is that 3 Conservative Prime Ministers, David Cameron, Therasa May, and Boris Johnson and senior members of the Tory leadership have done everything to protect and launder dirty Russian money for wealthy Russian oligarchs1. It is disturbing (and frustrating) reading as the world tries to isolate Putin economically and financially.
With friends like these, it’s almost a “why bother?” in attempting to take down Putin.
Why use the political Right? Unquestioned fealty to capitalism, even when it’s the perverse cronyistic anti-free market version we see today, and openly sympathetic to authoritarianism, conceptually couched in “law and order” lip service and “preserving freedom” equivocality, are the realist reasons.
It is the the political Left’s advantage to tie their political opponents to the Russian oligarchical leash. And Spring tends to be the best time to show Putin and company’s political pets in their front yards.
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/24/boris-johnson-allowed-russian-interference-into-the-uk-as-putin-prepared-for-war/