To wonder if Putin is mentally ill?

[MsBombastic555]

And if so what particular conditions could be have?

He certainly seems composed, stable, coherent but in terms of his "I'm not bluffing" message...how could anyone of sound, rational mind say this?

Forgive me for not knowing much about the background of the Soviet Union and Ukraine. I don't know what has prompted this sudden invasion back in February/what areas are disputed and which aren't and why?

The guy is completely and absolutely off his nut.

Psychopath. He is killing 1000s of innocent people.

I don't think anyone who was mentally well would do the things he does.

Yep which means when he's ready to kill himself he'll press the nuke button and take everyone with him.

Of course he's mentally ill, like anyone involved in politics at a high level he is a narcissist at the very least. You can't run a country without being one. A non-narcissist will realise that they are not capable of running a whole country long before they get to the point they are in a position to do so.

It wasn’t a sudden invasion, Russia invaded and captured the Crimea in 2014, and there’d been fighting in Eastern territories ever since - this year was a dramatic escalation of hostilities. I don’t think Putin is mentally ill in a proper sense, but highly lightly to be psychopathic.

Agree that he's not exactly mentally ill in the way that he could particularly be treated and perhaps 'cured.' But there is certainly something very, very different and dark in the way that he thinks compared to your average person. Hugely sinister.

Well he certainly has no problem with murdering huge numbers of innocent people (and this is not new, you can go back to Chechnya 20 years ago) but if that makes him mentally ill then loads of world leaders have been mentally ill. Sure, call him a psychopath I guess.

But just because he's willing to kill lots of other people doesn't mean he's crazy enough to use nuclear weapons or start WW3. That would be a different kind of crazy.

Psychopath. Not just because of the invasion, look at his history and the country of torturers and mafia that he’s deliberately shaped Russia into. He walked into the KGB HQ asking to join at age 15, that ain’t normal behaviour. He humiliates the Belarusian leader by making him stand in photos with his knees bent and frolic in the sea on a joint photoshoot. Sadist psychopath.

The good news is that, if you look at history, leaders like this tend to reach the same end result, and it isn’t a long glorious empire.

Thanks for all your replies. I realise he is "nuts" in the general sense was just thinking to myself if he was actually examined by a professional if he would be diagnosed with a clinical mental illness.

Forgive me for not knowing much about the background of the Soviet Union and Ukraine

Ukraine was one of the states that separated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin is a product of the soviet era and seemingly ideologically wedded to the past.

Russian history can generally be summed up by five words - and then it got worse. it’s a hard country with a hard history. Fascinating and beautiful at times but equally gruesome and horrifying.

I don’t think psychopathy is a mental illness as much as a personality disorder. It’s all quite complex but I think at the heart of it he was conditioned by the soviet era and KGB and it was too easy to utilise that mindset for power in a world that’s much ‘softer’ by comparison. He’s playing by a culture rule book that’s incomprehensible to many westernised countries.

Evil or ill? He falls into a long line of autocratic despots. He has lost his moral compass, if he ever even had one. Absolute power and all that. He can't be got rid of, unless he dies or someone murders him, and then we get another, equally unbalanced individual, who has been lined up for 20 or 30 odd years in the same mould. That is why democracy is quite a good thing.

Well he's not quite normal, put it that way

There's a whole word of information out there on the internet and yet you want women to spoon-feed you the background of a very complicated situation that goes back 100+ years? Go off and do you own research. Borrow a book from the library.

Psychopathy is the one that springs to mind

He is the product of isolation, as well as being, old and under pressure. He believes himself and his country to have capabilities that objectively they just don’t have. It’s delusion.

Plus, he is obviously physically unwell and pain/painkillers may play a part.

Definitely Narcissistic, possibly psychopathic

I suspect he might have an extreme personality disorder as opposed to being actively mentally ill.

Well whatever he has;hitler had it too.

At a minimum he has a narcissistic personality disorder.

No one who does the thing he does is normal;he's threatening to start world world 3.

I don’t think psychopathy is a mental illness as much as a personality disorder.
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I'd imagine he has antisocial personality disorder and 100% agree that personality disorders are not mental illness. I'd love to read an account of his childhood

I'd go for doagnosis of "Megalomaniac who is devoid of emotional empathy and enabled by a position of power"

@pattihews I said that as a disclaimer it wasn't my original question. In short, what is your problem 🤔

Some sort of personality disorder, like narssistic or anti-social for sure but not 'unwell' as such.

Maybe not in a democracy but in a country where being part of the KGB would give you a better standard of living? It meant better wages, better housing, better food and access to it, as well as better medical care and paid for vacations. I can well imagine that as a child he saw all this and wanted it for himself.

he’s an autocrat styling himself in the ‘strong man’ image so often revered in Russia. I do think he’s sick, possibly even dying, which if true means he could be doing this as a way to secure his ‘legacy’ before he does die. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s mentally ill either, even if he wasn’t at the start.

It would be a brave Russian doctor who diagnosed Putin with a mental illness!