Vladimir PutinThe appeal of the Russian invasion in Ukraine – delivered yesterday at 3 am British time – was the nightmare.
In turn, promiscuous, horrifying, apocalyptic, he warned: “Whoever tries to hinder us and further threaten our country, our people, must know that RussiaThe answer to ‘s will be immediate and will lead to consequences you have never experienced in your history.’
Hours later, bombs and rockets rained down on Ukraine. Russian troops and tanks poured over the border.
Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and civilian casualties are on the rise.
Putin’s excuse for invading could have been ridiculous had it not been for these dire consequences. He claimed absurdly that Russia’s mission was to “denazify Ukraine” – while behaving just like the Nazis who invaded Ukraine in 1941.
Vladimir Putin’s address announcing the Russian invasion of Ukraine – delivered at 3 am British time on Thursday – was a nightmare
He played both victim and bully. At one point, he lamented that NATO’s “eastward expansion” was “dangerous for Russia.”
He then threatened that Russia remained “one of the most powerful nuclear powers” with “advanced weapons”.
It was Putin unfiltered, his words and demeanor giving us a terrifying look into the dark corners of the mind behind this seemingly inexplicable step.
Many are wondering if Putin is crazy. Why else would he destabilize the world order by invoking the nuclear threat?
Why else engage Russia, with its economy in free fall, in a bloody, costly war?
It would be easy, but wrong, to explain Putin’s actions as crazy. As his biographer, I believe he is not crazy. Rather, he acts rationally, according to his own distorted, ill-informed worldview.
I lived in Moscow on the road between Putin’s country house and the Kremlin. I could see the speed of his motorcade, tinted windows, and strong security, symptomatic of his dark, protective psyche.
Like most bullies, his aggression stems from insecurity. He grew up poor, among the ruins of postwar Leningrad – now St. Petersburg – in a working-class family in a gloomy block of flats inhabited by rats.
Hours later, bombs and rockets rained down on Ukraine. Pictured: Russian Mi-8 attack helicopters storm Gostomel air base, right on the outskirts of Kiev
He joined a street gang and learned that it was worth the first blow.
While still in school, he applied to join the KGB, the largest gang of all. But just as his KGB career was booming, the Berlin Wall fell, and with it the Eastern Bloc, and then the USSR itself.
Putin was based at the KGB office in Dresden, surrounded by anti-communist mobs. He was frightened and angry: he had risen to the ranks only to bring down the system beneath him.
He, like many of his peers, blamed then-Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev. He saw him as a “weak” leader who betrayed Russia by dividing its empire.
He never came to terms with his loss. Thirty years later, he sees himself as the person to correct this mistake.
Putin knows – and understands – little about the West, but he relentlessly believes that he is dishonest in all his actions and that Westerners do not respect Russian culture.
He firmly believes that the West wants to conquer Russia. Until recently, this fear was mitigated with caution.
Despite his macho, Putin calculated in his 20s to lead Russia, not impulsively.
When he invaded Georgia in 2008, he forced Georgians to move first. He waited until Ukraine fell into political chaos before taking over Crimea in 2012.
But today, Putin is a caricature. Caution turned into paranoia, cold hostility into unbridled aggression.
The attack reached Ukraine on all fronts with bombs and missiles dropped across targets across the country in the early hours, followed by attacks by troops from Crimea, Donbas, Belgorod and Belarus, as well as helicopter landings in Kiev and power plants on the Dnieper River. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant also fell into the hands of Russian forces
Why? Age is one of the reasons. Putin is 69 and despite all the Botox, training and trying to keep time, he continues.
He is an old man who is in a hurry, obsessed with history – even though he understands and misinterprets it.
Whenever he is introduced to a historian, he wants to know only one thing: “What will be the epitaph of the offspring on me?”
He wants to be remembered as the man who saved Russia and regained Ukraine. He feels this is his last chance.
With a stagnant economy and rampant crime, he knows Russia looks weak. His demonstration of strength, gathering troops along Ukraine’s borders, was intended to compensate by instilling fear.
If he was cunning, he would keep them there, waiting for the Ukrainian economy to collapse without a shot.
So why not do it?
Kovid played a role. Putin has stepped down since the pandemic began. He did not even travel within Russia, transported between his lavish palaces and the Kremlin in a limousine and helicopter.
He saw few people outside his inner circle. Anyone who receives an audience must first be isolated for two weeks in a state hotel monitored by armed guards.
Before meeting with the president, he or she had to go through a special tunnel in a fog of ultraviolet light and disinfectant. Such is Putin’s paranoia.
And his worldview is getting smaller and darker. Putin doesn’t even have a smartphone. He is detached from reality.
This has not always been the case. Putin listened to professionals tell him the facts, his generals and economists. But most of these advisers have stayed away.
Even the astute Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is no longer consulted, he is simply forced to defend the decisions already taken.
Putin (pictured) knows – and understands – little of the West, but relentlessly believes he is dishonest in all his actions and that Westerners do not respect Russian culture.
Now the president is surrounded only by hawks and yes-men, mostly aging KGB ex-men like him. Their job is to agree with him.
A former Moscow intelligence officer told me, “You don’t bring bad news to the royal table.”
Those who survive are those who tell him what he wants to hear.
This was evident during a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Monday night, when a smiling Putin publicly harassed his top officials, humiliating them to make them look like a strong man.
The truth is that Putin has deluded himself that the invasion of Ukraine will be quick and successful, and that he can form a puppet government without a long, fierce war of occupation. There is no one to tell him that he is wrong.
He behaves like a king: unaccountable, arrogant, indifferent to the price Ukrainians and Russians will pay for his mania for history. He is not crazy, he is evil.
I do not believe that further territorial expansion is likely. Unless he withdraws – unlikely, as he could not bear such a loss of face – he will sink into Ukraine for years.
Putin’s ultimate game is for the West to recognize Russia as a great power and for the countries of the old Soviet Union, with the exception of the Baltic states, to fall within its sphere of influence. For the KGB hardman, it’s all about respect.
But his methods do not earn respect – only fear. I suspect that Vladimir Putin, who has always been a bully of street gangs, does not understand the difference.
Mark Galeotti is an honorary professor at the University College London School of Slavic and Eastern European Studies and author of We Need to Talk About Putin.