"As a result, we have a situation where a bunch of westerners are harming Russia by using the country’s name to promote an agenda which isn’t part of Russian discourse. And this is a phenomenon displayed in the behaviour of many zealots, who ‘support’ Russia as keyboard-warrior crusaders but don’t understand the place at all, in reality. Instead, they are projecting their own issues with their homelands onto this country and its leaders. For instance, American and European far-rightists think that because Vladimir Putin has restored Russia as a strong and sovereign state, he’s somehow aligned with their beliefs. And is on some kind of mission from God to save ‘white’ Christianity. But, he’s not. Because Russia may well be the most ethnically and religiously diverse country in Europe. And Putin’s own cabinets have included a smorgasbord of Jews, Muslims and Buddhists in addition to the Christians and Agnostics who form the largest Russian ‘belief’ categories. Sure, Putin has restored the prominence of the Orthodox faith and identifies as a believer himself. But that’s a cultural thing, rooted in hundreds of years of Russian history. And he’s not attempting to restore the official state religion of the Tsarist period. Nor has he publically considered banning abortion or outlawing homosexual relations, measures the church has frequently called for. Instead, the Russian President has personally attended the opening of Russia’s largest mosque, in Moscow, and has been described in a Reuters article as “the closest thing Israel has ever had to a friend in Moscow.” While Russia’s chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, says “Putin is on our side.” He even told the Limmud FSU how “Putin was the first president to publicly speak out against anti-Semitism and did the most for the Jews. There is no institutional anti-Semitism in Russia. The attitude toward the Jews in Russia is excellent."