Twenty years ago, I asked a Russian friend who stayed with us as part of a teacher/student exchange what he thought about “glasnost” and the new leadership in post-Soviet Russia. His answer was deflating, but heartbreakingly accurate: “Same thieves.”

Ten years ago, Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist, published a book titled The Man Without a Face, about the rise of a thuggish, but otherwise unremarkable, low-level KGB agent and the corrupt oligarchs and violent autocrats who keep him in power.

Four years ago, at a press conference after the Helsinki Climate Summit, then President Donald Trump announced that he trusted Vladimir Putin more than the American intelligence agencies that had determined Russia had tried to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election.

Three weeks ago, just as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began, Trump called his favorite media outlet to gush about what a “genius” Putin is for his weeks of positioning invasion forces while unashamedly lying about it.

Two weeks ago, one of his acolytes, speaking at a white supremacist fund-raiser, was rewarded with chants of “Pu-tin! Pu-tin!” from her audience.

Last week, Trump, speaking at a CPAC fundraiser, suggested a literal “false flag” operation: put Chinese insignias on American planes …”bomb the s*** out of Russia…blame China…and just sit back and watch.” This was the “leadership” he demonstrated from his bunker on Jan. 6th, 2001. Evidently, he thought this brilliant plan would loosen wealthy donors’ purse strings. So far, he hasn’t been wrong. They’ve just endorsed him as the Republican nominee for the 2024 election.

Also last week, Putin announced a 15-year prison sentence for anyone who contradicts his propaganda machine. What kind of government locks up independent journalists and has media mouthpieces the leader can personally access; gases and arrests peaceful protesters; only accepts election results that keep it in power; harasses and threatens educators who don’t toe the party line; limits access to books that might cause people to question its propaganda; pumps out gross disinformation to fuel outrage and social unrest? There are unsettling reasons these tactics sound familiar, and that’s why we mustn’t turn away from what Trumpism means to America.

It’s no accident that Trump feels a deep kinship with Putin, and Putin felt he had a staunch ally in Trump, who weakened NATO and American democracy on Putin’s behalf. Things got complicated when their scheme to subvert the young, democratically elected Ukrainian government, and America’s election process, was derailed by the arrest of two Putin operatives

trying to leave the U.S. after a meeting with Trump’s personal lawyer. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Ukrainian businessmen and international kleptocrats, exposed the plot to put pressure on Ukraine’s President, Vlodymyr Zelensky, to help ensure Trump’s re-election. Parnas has since been convicted of illegal donations to the Trump campaign. Thus was foiled a bloodless coup in Ukraine, which would have given Putin free access to its oil pipelines, as well as the glory of restoring Russia’s Soviet-era dominance over the region.

But even worse for Putin and his designs on the West was the deadly failure of America’s early COVID response, which cost him his only Western ally. When Trump couldn’t swindle, sue, or force his way back into office by sending his little army of violent extremists to stop certification of the 2020 election, Putin was on his own again. Now brute force is all he has left, fueled by frustration, isolation, and desperation, as well as greed.

America and NATO are sanctioning the Russian oligarchy–the wealthy corporatists controlling oil production, real estate, shipping, the entire economy of Russia–and funneling billions to Putin and his brutal government. But it’s not just Russians. There is an international gang of kleptocrats that elevated two distinctly limited but usefully violent and amoral men into positions of leadership. It’s no accident that several of Donald Trump’s closest allies, now convicted criminals, are American oligarchs who had long-time business dealings with Russia.

Trump’s de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was a longtime consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed president of Ukraine who was overthrown in 2014. He’s also done multimillion-dollar business deals with Russian oligarchs. Trump’s foreign policy advisor Carter Page had business ties to the state-controlled Russian oil giant, Gazprom. Another advisor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, attended a gala banquet in Moscow celebrating “Russia Today,” the Kremlin’s propaganda channel. He was seated at the head table near Putin. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. told an international real estate conference, ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.’ (eTurboNews, a trade publication). This cadre of millionaire oligarchs doesn’t mind others’ suffering, as long as there are profits to be made. Same thieves.

Putin’s “genius” for gaining and maintaining control in Russia sounds disturbingly familiar, too. Masha Gessen learned a great deal from interviewing the man himself, since he, like his American friend, enjoys bragging. “On May 13, 2000, six days after he was inaugurated, Putin signed his first decree and proposed a set of bills, all of them aimed, as he stated, at ‘strengthening vertical power.’ They served as the beginning of the dismantling of the country’s democratic structures… [One] bill allowed elected governors to be removed from office on mere suspicion of wrongdoing. The decree established presidential envoys to seven large territories of the country….Putin appointed the seven envoys [all with KGB bona fides] … to watch over popularly elected governors….Over time, the number of precincts where ‘special electoral culture’ decided the outcome grew steadily, and grew fast…. with every election at every level of government, Russians ceded to the authorities more of their power to decide.” Think about Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Plainly, attacks on American elections are straight from Putin’s playbook: gerrymander districts, establish “approved” election overseers; claim fraud, confiscate ballots, and attempt to overturn election results by any means; and establish obedient toadies at all levels. Finally, use “approved” media to rebrand it all as Election Integrity.

The connections are unmistakable: those who profit from Putin’s crimes are also corrupting our hard-won freedom. Here in New Hampshire, the Liberty Alliance is supporting the Free State Project, which has come here expressly to dismantle our Constitutional government. And who supports the Liberty Alliance? One easily finds their donors at thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraisers like that recent CPAC convention: the robber barons who made record profits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now CPAC mega-donors like Gazprom, Shell, and the Koch family reap the spoils of war in oil profits while we pay the price. As free people, at least for now, it’s imperative that we face the fact that the oligarchs and autocrats haven’t given up their ambition to own America the way they own Russia.

We can honor Ukraine’s courageous struggle against tyranny by learning from it: recognize the signs of creeping authoritarianism in our own country, and stop the erosion of our democratic institutions. Ukraine’s democracy is only about 8 years old; they’re still building it. Ours is well established in tradition and law; it’s ours to preserve, protect, and perfect. Ukraine is showing us what we’ve always said we value: the courage to fight not for power, but for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for everyone. Let’s hope we still have the courage to stand up to our own oligarchs and authoritarians, get them and their lobbyists and profiteers out of government, and stand together for democracy.

Jean Lewandowski is a resident of Nashua.