There has been much said about putins motivation for invading Ukraine. There was an interesting lecture online by Jordon Petersen who is a personality psychologist. He was lecturing about hitler and made the point that if you find a persons motivations unfathomable then it can be worth looking at the outcomes of their actions as their motivation. This is logical but also pretty scary way of looking at putin. For example the outcome of putins actions is that Russian soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers are killed and civilians are killed and displaced and a country is in chaos.
Putin is nearly 70. He has been at the helm in Russia for 23/4 years in a autocracy. What has that done to him emotionally and psychologically? He looks unwell. His plastic surgery is inevitably starting to go south and yes he does look puffy and Ill.
It is not unknown for dictators to start to lose their sense of reality and moral compass after so long in power and at such an age. I know Russia has a very different culture to the west broadly speaking but the way he has acted in an arrogant and sneering way during these ridiculous set pieces is appalling and worth analysing.
What do Russians expect of him in terms of behaviour. Did they not expect him to behave in a statesmenlike way and say how sorry he was for any deaths and damage on both sides. Why sneer and smile. Do Russians find this acceptable that their leader shares no regret even if he is acting. Are they satisfied that their leader is openly uncaring about the plight of Russians and ukrainians and offers no moral leadership, regret, sympathy. Even if only on the surface. This is not a satisfactory response from a world leader.
Are Russians satisfied at putins personal response to them and their soldiers? If boris said the uk were willing to sacrifice 50,000 for the glorious aims in Ukraine would the British public think this was all fine and dandy…I think not.
Putin also addresses the Russian people by stating that he/I took decisions. Ok great where is the rest of the government. So if bojo hops up and says oh by the way I have just decided to fire off a couple of nukes. The British public would say how dare you make that decision and where are your advisors.
Russians are now more unsafe and worse of culturally and economically than they were. If putin wanted to liberate the east then where was the diplomatic plan to do so? Ukraine’s bigger more powerful neighbour could have come up with a plan to resolve that conflict peacefully in those regions. Why not even try. The east is being used as an excuse.
Can I put forward the idea that putin is acting from his own psychological and emotional need to create war and chaos as we have seen with every dictator that we have ever known and that that sadly is his motivation.