Former Soviet “refusenik”, Natan Sharansky, says Russian President Vladimir Putin took his cue for invading Ukraine from the Free World.
“What we are hearing today, we have the Russian leader who decided being for 20 years in power, he really decided that he is the strongest leader in the world. All the other leaders, [U.S. President] Bush, [U.S. President] Obama, [Former German Chancellor Angela] Merkel coming and leaving, but he stays forever,” Sharansky told CBN News.
A prominent human rights activist, Sharansky became known as a refusenik – a Jew who was refused permission to leave the Soviet Union and immigrate to Israel.
Sentenced to 14 years, he served nine– largely for spreading truth about human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. He was dramatically released from prison on February 11, 1986 and immigrated to Israel that very day.
Later he became an Israeli government minister and afterwards the Head of the Jewish Agency, the quasi-government body responsible for immigration of the Jewish people to Israel.
According to Sharansky, Putin wants to bring back the former Soviet Union and he’s already started by bringing back territories from Georgia, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan.
“Of course, Ukraine is a biggest and the most important part of his new empire. And here he started the war. And in fact, this war, which he starts, it will not finish with Ukraine. It challenges, the very basic principles of the free world,” said Sharansky.
“I think if the free world will not show the same determination and the stubbornness, as he shows the free world is in danger, he warned.
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