To Vladimir Vladmirovich Putin

Mr. Putin,

I am an American living in Georgia, but do not get your hopes up for you this is a Georgia you have not yet invaded. We have no real natural resources that you would covet, and no regions of majority Russian speaking people that you can claim control of. Our legislature is not merely a puppet for the policies of a president who wields totalitarian control.

I am writing to ask in one succinct word, why? Why do you feel the need to march into Ukraine and threaten the sovereign region who has been autonomous since 1995. Why do you feel the need to back a president who stole $70 billion from its people? Why is it compulsory for you to use your military might on a country that can barely defend itself?

In an era of geopolitical thought and the United Nations trying desperately year after year to maintain global peace, why do you feel the need to invade another country with such pretexts that mirror Hitler in its justifications?

Yes, surely you remember the invasion of Czechoslovakia? Hitler's justification was to protect the German speaking population of the region. How is this any different from what you are doing? Sure the comparison may seem extreme, but his actions soon plunged the world into War World II.

In these modern times do you really want another Cold War? Or perhaps that is your main goal, to revert back to the policy of the former USSR that you grew up in, a time that you secretly still crave. You see I still think you long for, (forgive the idiom) the good old days. The days where the party was apodictic in its actions, and its support by the people unwavering, or else! A time where you could make any dissent disappear overnight, non-persons erased from history sent to your infamous Gulags.

Mr. Putin, it is your people I feel the worst for, and the people of Ukraine. I have seen what the Russian power has done there in its recent history, and why you want the region for yourself. It is hard to forget, though you might consider it Western propaganda, that an estimated 10 million Ukrainians died of starvation when the USSR confiscated all of its grain in the 1930s.

You are a brilliant man, and no one can deny that, not even Western media. However, your continued intent to control the Ukrainian peoples, and the breadbasket of the former Soviet States can only harm the people involved. Please use reason, and do not let your ego influence your future decisions.

Sincerely,

Taylor Chandler