&gt; The leader of the LDR said he wants to take back Alaska by force.<p>Zhirinovsky told a lot of nonsense. He&#x27;s frequently compared to a clown for a very good reason. That&#x27;s media stuff, saying all sorts of bullshit to grab attention. Deputies almost never get accounted for anything they say.<p>LDPR&#x27;s absolutely loyal to current powers. Believe it or not, if Zhirinovsky&#x27;s a part of a fringe extremist group, that&#x27;s an extremist group blessed by Putin.<p>&gt; That&#x27;s just one example of the kind of crackpot ideas they come out with<p>They all do play clowns and tell all sort of crackpot ideas. It&#x27;s not like Zhirinovsky&#x27;s has secured a position of court jester. Just consider Fedorov from United Russia as a nice example.<p>&gt; it&#x27;s not an idea Putin would entertain<p>Why? Putin&#x27;s perfectly fine with all this bullshit, as long as it&#x27;s not against his own agenda. Sure thing, he doesn&#x27;t want to be associated with this, and won&#x27;t explicitly approve of anything, but had he ever reacted harshly? Nah, imperial wet dreams of Great Russia, with Soviet war bears retaking Alaska and &quot;Fascington&quot; doesn&#x27;t seem bother him any tiniest bit.<p>&gt; I certainly don&#x27;t think Putin is implicated with cast iron evidence here, which seems to be your position.<p>I guess we agree on this, not iron-clad for sure. An iron-clad one would be a recordings or multiple testaments. And those are unlikely to be ever obtained, even if they exist.<p>Yet, I think, it&#x27;s well-probable, with high degree of possibility - to the extent we can say &quot;too many factors point to this, so it&#x27;s well likely Patrushev and Putin knew of this&quot;.