{"id":45221,"date":"2022-03-14T12:30:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/?p=45221"},"modified":"2022-05-06T10:59:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T08:59:55","slug":"why-putin-got-so-delusional-inozemtsev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/why-putin-got-so-delusional-inozemtsev\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Putin got so Delusional"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Ein Portrait Putins aus Patro\u00adnen\u00adh\u00fclsen, von der ukrainischen K\u00fcnst\u00adlerin Daria Martschenko. Foto: Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508251598805{margin-top: 30px !important;}\u201d][vc_column width=\u201c2\/3\u201d css=\u201d.vc_custom_1508252250311{padding-right: 20px !important;}\u201d][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

By waging a war against Ukraine, Putin has badly miscal\u00adcu\u00adlated. The Russian leader has become victim of his own propa\u00adgan\u00addistic visions and failed to antic\u00adipate the Western respo\u00adnse, writes Vladislav Inozemtsev.<\/h3>\n

<\/h2>\n

Three weeks into Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine it seems obvious that Putin badly miscal\u00adcu\u00adlated. The Ukrainian people stand united against the enemy, the Russian advance remains slow, and there is no idea what the Kremlin plans to do after a capture of Kyiv. With unprece\u00addented Western sanctions and inter\u00adna\u00adtional companies exiting in droves, the damage to both Russia\u2019s eco\u00adnomy and its inter\u00adna\u00adtional standing appears enormous.<\/p>\n

Prior to the war, most experts, including myself, argued that President Vladimir Putin will not attack Ukraine because of either lack of strategic forces needed to occupy the entire country or fear of military defeat that might ruin his support at home. The start of the Russian offensive made many people to believe that Putin has become delusion\u00adal and lost his sense of reality. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel already claimed in 2014<\/a> that the Russian leader was living \u201cin another world\u201d. So now we need to figure out how and why this happened.<\/p>\n

I would focus on three major factors that contributed to this.<\/p>\n

First, it seems that Putin has always been a Russian imperi\u00adalist who was shocked by the downfall of the Soviet Union, or, as he uses to call it, a version of the \u2018historical Russia\u2019, and believes that Ukraine was a crucial actor in the Empire\u2019s dismem\u00adberment. This is at least partially true: Ukraine was the largest Soviet republic that declined to sign a new Union treaty in summer of 1991; it never ratified even a mo\u00adre loose Common\u00adwealth of Independent States charter; it rejected the Russia-picked candidate in 2004\/\u200b05 presi\u00addential marathon; it opted out of any Customs or Eurasian Union with Russia, and finally it revolted against the Moscow-impo\u00adsed cancel\u00adlation of the EU Associ\u00adation Agreement in 2014. Putin tried hard to get Ukraine on his side and was humil\u00adiated by the Orange Revolution and later by the Revolution of Dignity; he failed to split the nation in 2014 and promote his be\u00adloved Minsk Agree\u00adments since 2015. He became crazy in his efforts to prove Uk\u00adrainians and Russians are either the same people or being culturally and histori\u00adcally insep\u00ada\u00adrable, and, since he under\u00adstood that time was running out for him, he took the risk of invasion becoming capti\u00advated by his own \u2013 albeit primitive and mislea\u00adding \u2013 arguments. Having created a world of propa\u00adgan\u00addistic images and visions, he became his own victim. He sincerely believed Russia should \u2013 and can \u2013 compensate for all humil\u00adi\u00ada\u00adtions of the post-Soviet era and became an addict to this concept willing to take revenge at almost any price.<\/p>\n

Putin thought the West would react like in previous times<\/h2>\n

Secondly, President Putin made a huge mistake in assessing the West\u2019s respo\u00adnse to the Russian invasion. Here I would say he was not so much delusional since for years the Western nations have been quite indif\u00adferent to his adven\u00adtures. After the incursion into Georgia that resulted in recog\u00adnizing both Abkhazia and South Ossetia as \u2018independent\u2019 states, almost no sanctions were imposed on Russia. After the annex\u00adation of Crimea, the full-scale regional war in Donbas and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17, the sanctions inflicted were mostly symbolical \u2013 if someone asks Russians in the streets whether they feel their effects, she or he will get a response that only the food embargo is visible, but this was a Rus\u00adsian, and not a Western, move.<\/p>\n

Taking into account that the war in Donbas claimed more than 14,000 lives but resulted in no crucial hits at the Russian eco\u00adnomy, Putin had a proper basis for thinking that a new advance into Ukraine will not result in meaningful sanctions (the discon\u00adnection of some Russian banks from SWIFT and the termi\u00adnation of Nord Stream 2 that were widely menti\u00adoned, caused no concern). Maybe, if the West voted for all the sanctions now in place well before the conflict started, Putin would not have had a strong motivation to move forward. Thus, here not only he miscal\u00adcu\u00adlated, but all his aides and experts, none of whom predicted the closure of the Euro\u00adpean airspace, the arrest of the Central Bank\u2019s reserves or the US oil embargo.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s power vertical is dysfunctional<\/h2>\n

The third element appears to be the least dependent on President Putin\u2019s mindset but of course was created by his multiyear presence at the top of the Russian poli\u00adtics. During these years he master\u00adminded an extremely loyal but not very effective \u2018power vertical\u2019 filled with non-profes\u00adsional managers being preoc\u00adcupied with ei\u00adther self-enrichment or career making which both required a full and unconditio\u00adnal subju\u00adgation to their boss\u2019s will. Very illumi\u00adnating in this respect is the story of the 5th<\/sup> Service inside the Federal Security Service that is called the Service of current infor\u00admation and inter\u00adna\u00adtional connec\u00adtions and is respon\u00adsible for monitoring the situation abroad with special attention to the post-Soviet space. On 11 March, two inves\u00adtigative journalists reported<\/a> that the service\u2019s chief and his de\u00adputy were placed under house arrest \u2014 supposedly because Putin was furious about the difference between the infor\u00admation about Ukraine\u2019s military capabil\u00adities they provided and those that appeared at the battle\u00adfields (I would add that rumors about Ukrainians expected to greet the Russian \u2018liber\u00adators\u2019 were also a bit exaggerated).<\/p>\n

The same can be said about the Russian military that was thou\u00adght to be a modern and well-equipped force but drove into Ukraine on Soviet-bu\u00adild trucks with no idea about their desti\u00adnation and purpose. All this was easy to predict because Putin has been extremely dependent of what his aides and colleagues present him as a credible infor\u00admation \u2013 so here his delusion was not \u2018internal\u2019, or \u2018natural\u2019, but may rather be attributed to the dysfunc\u00adtional character of the entire system he had created.<\/p>\n

The war in Ukraine, by the way, is an enormous, albeit rare, proof of Putin\u2019s conflict with reality. In other spheres he looks much more successful (or lucky) than in this one. He almost doesn\u2019t care about his country\u2019s economy \u2013 but all the current crises have been met quite efficiently. Thus, the quality of life achieved by 2013 has been by and large sustained until today. He uses the most straight\u00adforward ways to crush the political opposition, and it looks he chose the right way for not estab\u00adlishing dialogue with his opponents since the overall number of tho\u00adse ready to confront him is tiny.<\/p>\n

In many other moves he also chose the right ways and coherent responses \u2013 but the \u201cUkrainian question\u201d made him crazy, and, with a high degree of certainty will bring his reign to an end.<\/p>\n

Vladislav Inozemtsev is Special Advisor to the Middle East Media Research Institute<\/span>\u2019s Russian Media Studies Project and Foun\u00adder and Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Indus\u00adtrial Studies.<\/em><\/p>\n

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