Defense of Russia's tangible material existence in his mind also extends to the defense of Russia's intangible cultural superstructure, ie religion, etc
In this way he cleverly appeals to both left and right
The "spiritual" could be a reference to Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which the Russian Orthodox Church sees as illegitimate.
Here is an article by Pew Research on the denominations.. The short version is Ukraine's church broke off from Russia's and claims only Ukrainian Patriarchs. Russia, in contrast, claims both Russian and Turkish Patriarchs.
So the usual thing that happens in organized religion, a minority group splits off and takes a hard turn away from convention, and the church that existed for hundreds of years views it as illegitimate. Which, honestly, valid. The Ukrainian church serves as a means of encouraging nationalism and anti-Russian arguments, while the Russian one has been seen as the legitimate Orthodox church for hundreds of years the world over.
It was state sponsored schism which only purpose was yet another "Russia bad" show. I imagine it was and will be pretty damaging for orthodoxy in Ukraine and mostly for the benefit of catholic church which had longstanding conflict with Moscow patriarchate about catholic proselytysm in Ukraine.
In other words, by protecting Donbass from Ukrainonazis, we defend Russians (in a wierd nationalist manner) and fight for the sovereignty of those in Donbass that wanted to join the Russian federation. When politicians talk about spiritual stuff, it seems to be some nonsense I've never understood.
Yeah I get everything but ''spiritual'' part is weird.
Not really weird. Putin is nationalist after all, thery always include that. About what it exactly means... it is this vague for a reason. Everyone can see whatever they want under this word.
Spiritual values is just stuff like the cishet family, defending the motherland etc. Russia has been positioning itself as the spiritually and morally superior nation compared to the west in their media.
