Analysis of Putin's Political Strategy

I’ve said a thousand times that we don’t need fairy tales told to us, and I, at least, don’t need fairy tales about the scary Putin,

need fairy tales told to me

about the scary Putin,

who isn’t violating anything there, the cunning scoundrel,

and wants to conquer all of Ukraine.

I’ve been observing Putin continuously since 1999.

In 1999, my first position was, well,

one of— among my job responsibilities was

written: analysis

of the military-political situation in the world.

At that moment, this was precisely when Putin came to power,

almost to the very day.

And since then, I’ve been observing him continuously,

continuously. Putin is a classic right-wing liberal,

uh, of the late nineteenth-century— Stolypin type.

And this entails, and it is what he is heavily criticized for in

Russia,

a rational policy. The right wing of Russian

pa-patriots

He criticizes Putin the whole time for being an insufficient imperialist and not wanting

to respond with a series of strikes

there, including against NATO, with a series of nuclear strikes.

But he simply thinks rationally within the framework of a Westphalian understanding of

politics: spheres of influence, the balance of power, threats, containment,

and, well, checkmating on the chessboard, with international respect for interests, and so

on. From Putin's point of view, or from a certain point of view,

the West has spat in Putin's

face for twenty-five years. He put up with all of it because a more

pro-Western politician is impossible to find in Russia.

He very much wants to please the West, to be with the West, to be recognized by

the West, and so on and so forth. There.

Even the turn toward Asia is difficult for him.

And he honestly would have carried it all out long ago if there had been equal

partners in Ukraine,

that if they don't intend to fulfill them, they don't make promises, but if they do promise,

they will fulfill them.

So, time and again, and quite recently,

Peskov came out and said:

“Zelensky is one hundred percent illegitimate. And we will not discuss it.”

Because Zelensky has betrayed them

a dozen times.

And everyone knows this. The West knows it, and people in Russia know it too,

because Ukraine does not fulfill, and never intended to fulfill,

already agreed-upon obli— obligations. Moreover, it makes a virtue of this.

Such self-glorification.

And when the consequences come, it runs to the West for money and says:

“Give us F-16s, give us money, because the accursed imperial horde wants

to crush us.”