I’m thinking either Putin is nuts, stupid, or has been diagnosed with a fatal illness. Something is really off on this.
I know right? I think Xi has gotten his ear. And Xi doesn't have Putin's best interests in mind.
Here is a post from TexAgs.com which could give a clue into Putin’s state of mind. I’m a Bama fan, but TexAgs.com contains some good political info.
Ksenia Sobchak, another television celebrity whose father was mayor of St. Petersburg and a 1990s mentor to Mr. Putin, posted on Instagram that from now on she would only “believe in the worst possible scenarios” about her country’s future. Days earlier, she had praised Mr. Putin as a “grown-up, adequate politician” compared to his Ukrainian and American counterparts.
“We are now all trapped in this situation,” she wrote on Thursday. “There is no exit. We Russians will spend many years digging out from the consequences of this day.”
During the pandemic, analysts had noticed a change in Mr. Putin a man who isolated himself in a bubble of social distancing without parallel among Western leaders. In isolation, he appeared to become more aggrieved and more emotional, and increasingly spoke about his mission in stark historical terms. His public remarks descended ever deeper into distorted historiography as he spoke of the need to right perceived historical wrongs suffered by Russia over the centuries at the hands of the West.
The political scientist Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a close adviser to Mr. Putin until falling out with him in 2011, said he was stunned by the president’s dark description of Ukraine as a dire threat to Russia in his hourlong speech to the nation on Monday.
“I have no clue where he got all that he seems to be reading something totally strange,” Mr. Pavlovsky said. “He’s become an isolated man, more isolated than Stalin was.”
Ms. Stanovaya, the analyst, said she now felt that Mr. Putin’s heightened obsession with history in recent years had become key to understanding his motivation. After all, the war against Ukraine appeared impossible to explain strategically, since it had no clear resolution and would inevitably only increase anti-Russian sentiment abroad and escalate Russia’s confrontation with the NATO alliance.
“Putin has brought himself to a place in which he sees it as more important, more interesting, more compelling to fight for restoring historical justice than for Russia’s strategic priorities,” Ms. Stanovaya said. “This morning, I realized that a certain shift has taken place.”
She said that by all appearances, the ruling elite around Mr. Putin did not realize that Thursday’s war was coming, and was uncertain about how to respond. Beyond state television personalities and pro-Kremlin politicians, few prominent Russians spoke out in support of the war.
But that, she said, did not mean that Mr. Putin risked any kind of palace coup, given his tight hold on the country’s sprawling security apparatus and his expansive crackdown on dissent over the last year.
“He can still act for a long time,” Ms. Stanovaya said. “Inside Russia, he is practically secure from political risk.”