WASHINGTON — For two decades, Vladimir Putin has struck rivals as reckless, impulsive. But his behaviour in ordering an invasion of Ukraine — and now putting Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert — has some in the West questioning whether the Russian president has become dangerously unstable, AP reported.
In recent days, Putin has rambled on television about Ukraine, repeated conspiracy theories about neo-Nazism and Western aggression, berated his own foreign intelligence chief on camera from the other side of a high-domed Kremlin hall where he sat alone. Now, with the West’s sanctions threatening to cripple Russia’s already hobbled economy, Putin has ordered a higher state of readiness for nuclear weapons, blaming the sanctions and what he called “aggressive statements against our country.”
The uncertainty over his thinking adds a wildcard to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Western officials must confront Putin as they also wonder whether he comprehends or cares about cataclysmic consequences — or perhaps is intentionally preying on the long-held suspicions about him.
An aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Putin on Monday, said the Russian leader answered Macron “without showing irritation, in a very clinical and a very determined manner.”
“We can see that with President Putin’s state of mind, there is a risk of escalation,” added the aide, who spoke anonymously in line with the French presidency’s practice on sensitive talks. “There is a risk of manipulation from President Putin to justify what is unjustifiable.”
Foreign leaders have long tried to get inside Putin’s head and have been wrong before. And Putin in this crisis is showing many of the same traits that he has displayed since becoming Russia’s leader. Putin has directed invasions of neighbours, unspooled conspiracy theories and outright falsehoods, and ordered audacious operations like interfering in the past two US presidential elections.
He single-handedly made landmark decisions like the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, consulting only his narrow inner circle of KGB veterans and keeping everyone else in the dark. He has long been surrounded by lieutenants reluctant to risk their careers by urging caution, let alone voicing adverse opinions.
He has also talked about nuclear war and once mused that such a conflict would end in Russians going “to heaven as martyrs.”
Experts say Putin could be using the spectre of nuclear conflict to fracture the growing support for Ukraine’s defence and to force concessions. His latest comments also suggest the sanctions are working.
“We have to know this is a sign that we’re getting to him,” said Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence and a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security. “We just have to take that into account. We have to be cool.”
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