In The Shadow of October 7: Unmasking Putin’s Role

Dear Israel, Putin is not your friend. Putin was never your friend. He is a Jew-hating thug, living in a particular part of the world with a long history of Jew-hating thugs. And let’s face facts, Putin is a traditionalist.

On October 7, 2023 — which marked Vladimir Putin’s 71st birthday — Hamas carried out the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, hundreds taken hostage, and entire communities reduced to ashes in a meticulously planned assault that many have rightly called a modern-day pogrom.

The brutality, the targeting of civilians, the glee displayed by the perpetrators — played out as, and seemed to evoke the darkest chapters of Jewish history under Tsarist Russia, when state-tolerated mobs slaughtered Jews with impunity.

That the attack fell on Putin’s birthday is no mere coincidence in my view. It was a symbolic “gift” delivered through Moscow’s long-standing proxies: Iran and Hamas.

While Western intelligence and the media have focused primarily on Tehran’s role, the more profound truth is that Putin, and the Russia he has rebuilt, were very much part of enabling — and perhaps even encouraging — the atrocity of October 7th.

The. October 7th, Massacre, exposed the real face of Putin, his regime, and the Russian Orthodox Church he so deeply loves and empowers: a face that has always regarded Jews with suspicion, contempt, and, at times, outright hatred.

A Millennium of Hatred Revived

Russia’s antisemitism is not a footnote; it is foundational. From the medieval blood libels propagated by the Russian Orthodox Church to the Tsarist-era pogroms of Kishinev and Odessa — often incited or excused by clergy who preached that Jews were Christ-killers — hatred of Jews was woven into the fabric of Russian imperial identity.

The Church played a central role, portraying Jews as eternal outsiders threatening Holy Russia.

Putin, who openly models himself on the Tsars, has deliberately resurrected this fusion of autocracy and Orthodox nationalism. He is not formally the head of the Church (unlike Henry VIII in England).

Still, he functions as its protector and benefactor, pouring billions of rubles into its restoration and global expansion while receiving in return divine legitimacy for his rule. Patriarch Kirill has repaid the favor by declaring Russia’s war in Ukraine a “holy war” against Western decadence — a war in which antisemitic tropes have proliferated unchecked.

Putin’s earlier displays of philo-Semitism — synagogue visits, warm words about Jewish contributions — were always tactical. They served to maintain working relations with Israel and to neutralize criticism from Russian-Jewish oligarchs. But as soon as strategic interests shifted, the mask came off. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, state-controlled media and officials have repeatedly trafficked in classic antisemitic stereotypes: “rootless cosmopolitans,” disloyal Jewish elites, even echoes of the Stalin-era “Doctors’ Plot.” In late 2023, antisemitic mobs stormed an airport in Dagestan hunting for “Jews from Israel,” an incident that went virtually unpunished.

The False Courtship of Israel

For years, Israel allowed itself to believe that Russia could be a pragmatic partner. Moscow’s military presence in Syria necessitated coordination to protect Israeli airstrikes against Iranian targets. Trade flourished, and over a million Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel provided a human bridge. Putin cultivated this relationship carefully, presenting himself as a reliable interlocutor.

But it was always a marriage of convenience, not affection. Russia never designated Hamas a terrorist organization. It hosted Hamas leaders in Moscow repeatedly — including a high-level delegation in March 2023, mere months before the October 7 attack. After the massacre, Russia welcomed another Hamas delegation alongside Iranian officials. At the same time, Putin refrained from condemning the terrorists and instead equated Israel’s defensive actions in Gaza to the Nazi siege of Leningrad.

Israel’s modest but principled support for Ukraine — humanitarian aid, air-raid alert technology, consistent UN votes condemning Russian aggression (until external pressure in 2025) — was enough to enrage the Kremlin. President Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage and his 2020 visit to the Western Wall only deepened Putin’s resentment, which is why Russia remains a profound Security Threat.

Russia remains a Profound Security Threat.

The lesson of October 7 should be clear: you do not share vital security interests with a state whose historical DNA includes centuries of visceral hatred toward you.

Russia’s coordination in Syria gave Israel tactical breathing room. Still, it came at the strategic cost of legitimizing a regime that views Jewish sovereignty — and Jewish life — as expendable when it serves broader geopolitical aims.

Putin’s Russia is not the Soviet Union; it is worse in some ways, because it has weaponized Orthodox Christian nationalism in the service of imperial revival.

The Church that once blessed pogroms now blesses wars of conquest and provides spiritual cover for a leader who sees the Jewish state as an obstacle to his vision of a multipolar world dominated by authoritarian powers. Israel and the democratic world must finally recognize this reality. Russia is not a mediator; it is a predator that hides its claws until the moment is right. On October 7, 2023, those claws were extended through proxies — and the Jewish people paid the price.

The true face of Putin’s Russia was revealed that day. It is a face our ancestors knew all too well. We ignore it at our peril.