For Russia, brutality and suffering are the second coming of Christ.

The 260 years they spent as tax collectors for the brutal Mongolian Empire formed many of of their beliefs and practices. They sneer at institution, laws, social norms. They ridicule them, believing their mostly-western adherents are either naive or lying. The world will be restored to its true brutal self, and then their proclivity for inflicting and enduring suffering will lift them to their proper, lofty significance which they’ve hitherto been unfairly denied.

Not only are the “facades” of laws, norms, and institutions weak and temporary, they are insulting. This is why Russia breaks and ridicules almost every agreement it signs. They’re awaiting a return of the world that birthed them. Their anti-Christ is their Czar who will lead them through the necessary hardship. Treaties, promises, norms, institutions and anything else that constrains HIS power is blasphemy.

Ukraine’s war is about forcing them to adopt a different God.