why does he care so much?

Most likely because he, as basically the only big capitalist country leader, have a communist party breathing on his neck, plus a war on his head. Therefore he need to try double hard to find safety valves and as every conservative postsocialist leader this means going with christofascists since they make strong mainstay for conservative party everywhere here.

So he’s not much different than Orban or Kaczyński but need to double down on this.