Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily?
My take is that he is cold and calculating. Not one I’d take lightly.
Like, I've seen arguments that the whole "Ukraine joining NATO" justification is just a pretext. But if that's just a pretext, what's the actual reason? I haven't seen a good answer yet.
I honestly don't think we'll know the true story for decades.
But in reality, he's just a short, puffy old man, living in ridiculous kitschy palaces, sitting on ridiculous long tables because he's afraid of even his most loyal underlings.
With attacking Ukraine, he made a huge mistake. He simply counted on the west doing nothing, as usual, but this time he went too far. But because he's just a powerful man, not a great man, he's unable to admit that.
Looks like he was right.
I don't think a man who has run Russia for decades will suddenly have a brain fart and attack another sovereign state on a whim. Think carefully.
Think very carefully.
It should have taken hours to break through. The operation was a shamble, even if it might succeed over time.
In 20 years of NATO operations over 5 different war theatres there have been 74 captured soldiers (src: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/prisoners-in-the-war-o... ). Here there have been 10's in a matter of days.
Either he's gone full potato, or he's still very calculating but everyone around him is feeding false information upwards to "look nice" and because they can't say no. Neither scenario bodes extremely well for his chances of success.
Dangerous ofcourse, but a mastermind he isn't.
He's a hardliner, I would not say that he could be frustrated easily but this absolutely is not an easy situation. His currency has collapsed and his country is on the brink of defaulting on foreign debt. He has no support anywhere but from his puppet dictator Lukashenko.
I think Putin did not expect such coordination and global effort in sanctioning Russia over Ukraine invasion. I believe that he wanted to take over Ukraine in just a few days and was surprised by Ukraine's defence and multiple desertions in his own army. He has decisions to make and choices are poor.
Everything I have read that isn't heavily biased anti-Russia propaganda says Russia has exercised enormous restraint so far in this invasion. There's no reason I see to believe Putin's been surprised by Ukraine's defenses, it's not as if all of Russia's forces at the border have been deployed and overwhelmed. Last I read not even half had mobilized. It's more like Putin pushed forward what he hoped was enough to compel a low-casualty outcome in his favor.
What happens next seems likely to be substantially more painful for the Ukrainians, but I hope I'm wrong.
Given his age, it's certainly within the realm of possibility that he is suffering from cognitive decline.
>Western intelligence agencies have good visibility into Putin right now and are closely watching his moves for any significant behavioral changes, several current and former officials said. Four U.S. officials said there is no intelligence saying he is mentally unstable, but they said he has displayed a different pattern of behavior from in the past.
>The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is frustrated and directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign and the worldwide condemnation of his actions, one former and two current U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence said.
>That is unusual, they say, because Putin, a former intelligence officer, usually keeps his emotions in check.
I mean... yes, clearly! Obviously, there's the Ukraine thing, but even before that, look at photos and footage of him when slighted at conferences and so on. He's not as emotionally open as a Trump or a Burlusconi, but he's no stoic as politicians go.
The picture he had portrayed of him doesn't match reality.
Just look at how scared he is of catching COVID. Since 2 years, almost no one is allowed near to him.
The amount of COVID tests his bodyguards and others need to do daily is pretty insane too. Everyone he sees/greets needs to be in isolation for 2 weeks upfront to get near.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/10/02/thanks-to-covid-...
And many other sources for many years. Here's a video from him in a hazmat suite, one of his last public appearances - https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-...
Fyi, sitting at a 20 meter table is not a public appearance and Putin has met his big/important friend Xi only virtually as far as I'm aware the last years.
I don't think he's calculated at all. Many things have wrong that he didn't suspect:
- Their 'advanced' malware was finished off by Microsoft within 3 hours
- Their 'advanced hacking culture' has been reversed within days, state tv programs and websites have gone offline within hours.
- Their decade long effort of a propaganda machine has been severely reduced within days ( RT, ...)
- Their portrait of having an 'advanced military' has been decimated. The world now knows that his army is mostly old, rusty, unmotivated and his troops are clueless.
- He miscalculated Ukraine, who he practically trained for 8 years. He also raised serious awareness under Ukrainians what happens with inaction.
- He's giving up his independence, isolating himself from the world and it seems that he's fully aware of that.
- He is constantly ( for years) angering his biggest and most profitable clients ( Europe).
He overstepped his carefully crafted image and failed every step on the way. Not even taken into consideration that he literally had 8 years ( or more) to plan this.
His image of being a world power ( while Russia has the same GDP as 30 years ago and America has grown 14 fold) is just an illusion, but real for him. We have given him too much attention on the world stage.
He has nukes, not brains... Should have been known years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 ).
Europe is prioritizing energy independence now, Russia still had multiple decades to profit from that to improve their situation.
Now, they became 100% China dependent.
