Russia's Invasion of Ukraine "Putin Lives in Historic Analogies and Metaphors"
Political scientist Ivan Krastev is an astute observer of Vladimir Putin. In an interview, he speaks of the Russian president's isolation, his understanding of Russian history and how he has become a prisoner of his own rhetoric.
* a conference shortly after the annexation of Crimea ...
He said people didn’t understand that Crimea is Russian. They are
the same arguments we are hearing today
* If you’ve been in power for 20 years in an authoritarian state, nobody dares to contradict you anymore. You have established a system, you have become the system yourself, and
you can’t imagine that the entire country doesn’t reflect that.
* He held forth about the situation in the Donbas like a foreign service agent who knows how many people live in each village and what the situation is like in each of them.
*
He considered the fact that primarily
women were responsible for Russia policy in the Obama administration
to be an intentional attempt to humiliate him.
*
he expressed outrage that the annexation of the Crimea had been compared with Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. ...
Putin’s overstatements became so extreme that they no longer had any connection to reality. He has become hostage to his own rhetoric.
*
In Putin’s view, Ukraine committed the greatest crime imaginable: It betrayed Russia.
* Western media has contributed to creating a false image of Putin. First, they say that Putin is corrupt. That is true. But does it explain his politics? ... corruption is merely an instrument of power.
* In 2011, Putin said that the protests against him had been organized by the American Embassy. Western analysts said that was propaganda, because he knew that wasn’t true. During that dinner, it became clear to me: He really believes it. ... If people demonstrate,
he doesn’t ask: Why are they out on the streets? He asks: Who sent them?
* It is said that Putin watched Gadhafi’s end on television for several hours. And that his decision to retake the position of president from Medvedev, which hadn’t initially been part of the plan, was a reaction to that, because he didn’t want to meet the same end as Gadhafi, executed by his own people. [Found in the culvert/pipe, pulled out and what followed. I watched that live. Unbelievable.]
[*]
He is on a mission, and risk avoidance is no longer a category for him. ... His job as a KGB agent was that of defending and protecting the Soviet Union. But he and his fellow agents were unable to protect it. The Soviet Union collapsed overnight without a war, without an invasion. Putin and the KGB didn’t understand what happened. They failed. I think he has a strong feeling of guilt.
* Putin was stationed in East Germany at the time. ... It is difficult to understand your country when it is changing dramatically and you are living overseas. ... what he experienced and comprehended was the national euphoria in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell, because he was there. In his essay,
he writes that a wall was erected between Ukraine and Russia and that this wall must fall. As such, what is currently taking place in Ukraine in Putin’s eyes is a peaceful reunification. ... The tragedy is that we are seeing a violent recolonization of Ukraine and not a peaceful reunification. ... He really believes that it’s not a war, but a special operation, because there can be no war between a single people.
And he will never believe those people who tell him it’s not true.
* Putin embodies Russia, but in the Ukraine, there had never been anybody who embodies this country. Two weeks ago, this became a fight between two men. ... Now, Zelenskyy is standing in Kyiv and saying: We are here underground. We are going to defend Kyiv. And we will be victorious because we are on the right side. The myth of the Soviet Union and
the heroic fight against the Nazis is not, in fact, embodied by Putin, but by Zelenskyy.
* Putin wanted to legitimize the invasion of Ukraine with claims that Russia once again had to defend itself from the Nazis. Which is why he has been constantly talking about the denazification of Ukraine. In fact, though, it is President Zelenskyy, himself a Jew, who is resisting a superior power.
* All of these apolitical supporters of Putin – who nod along when Putin says that Russia must rise from its knees and be proud – are now, for the first time, asking themselves
the most painful question one can ask of an authoritarian leader: Does he know what he is doing? Is he still in his right mind?
* I was shocked by that video showing him meeting with the Russian Security Council. All of these important figures who clearly didn’t know what was expected of them and felt uncomfortable because
they of course knew that they could never show any dissent, even though some of them are likely concerned about the self-destructive path Russia is now on.
* And I learned something else as well: that
the Russian elite was perhaps taken by surprise to an even greater degree than we were in the West. And
I think that the American government’s radical approach of making its intelligence information public helped to destroy Putin’s narrative.
* What narrative? That Russia is a victim. You can criticize the Ukrainian government and reject the West, but when you say that Zelenskyy is a Nazi, that’s not just absurd, it destroys the world’s post-World War II intellectual and moral foundation.
One of the most important rules is that you’re not allowed to trivialize Nazism. ... If you are hoping for appeasement from the West,
you should present a story that people will believe. But there isn’t one.
* Analysts believe Putin is surprised that his plans didn’t work out as he thought they would. ; Krastev: Because the Ukrainians are defending themselves and Zelenskyy stayed in Kyiv. ...
Normal Ukrainians way out in the countryside are confronting Russian soldiers and shouting: Go back! What are you doing here? The soldiers don’t have answers.
* And there is one video from Moscow that shows a huge crowd of people in front of IKEA, taken on the last day before it closed. They all wanted to go shopping one last time. ...
They were part of the global middle class. They wanted to live nice lives and travel like everybody else. ... And suddenly, it’s like an island separating from the mainland and sinking into the ocean. And nobody knows if there is a way back. The changes they are experiencing are not trivial. They know that it will take a long time, if at all.
* I don’t think the Ukrainians can hold out in the long run, but
I also think that a long-term occupation of Ukraine is impossible – because of the uprisings that are to be expected and also because of the economic costs of such an occupation.
* [Sanctions] The decisions taken are more severe that even the West itself would ever have imagined. ... There is a certain momentum at the moment, and not just in Poland and the Czech Republic, but also in faraway Italy and Spain. Putin very clearly started something. There was that one tweet:
On a single day, Putin managed to put an end to Swedish neutrality and German pacifism.
* What exactly did Putin trigger in the West?
Solidarity. And resilience.
*
The Germans have slaughtered two sacred cows. Nord Stream 2 as a symbol of German mercantilism, and pacifism as a symbol of German moralism. ...
Suddenly, the unempathetic East is bending over backwards to take in refugees. And all that is happening because there is an identifiable enemy.
The Polish government hasn’t suddenly become more democratic in the last two weeks, but
it did realize that the true threat to its sovereignty isn’t coming from Brussels, but from Moscow.
* I think the strong sanctions from the U.S. have less to do with saving Ukraine.
America is more strategic than it is emotional.
By imposing the sanctions, they want to save Taiwan by showing China the price of an intervention.
* How will Putin end? The Russians aren’t known for being particularly rebellious. Krastev: People die. That also applies to Putin. The changes will be so significant that the regime will have to change in order to survive, just as will happen in Europe as well.
Our economy will change, as will our understanding of freedom and democracy.
Already, the media has changed in order to fight the disinformation coming out of Russia. That will have consequences.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/wo ... 0fd5786288 
from turning mercenary right after leaving gov. 