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I wonder how many of those promises will actually be fulfilled before Putin gets frustrated.

imwillofficial 5y ago
I don’t get comments like these. Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? My take is that he is cold and calculating. Not one I’d take lightly.
- deleted 5y ago
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- klyrs 5y ago
  I thought he was cold and calculating until he attacked Ukraine. This looks downright ham-handed and heedless compared to the maneuvering of the decades leading up to now. He's made a damned fool of himself, if you ask me.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    It looks stupid to me too. Which is precisely why I think there's information I'm missing. Like, I've seen arguments that the whole "Ukraine joining NATO" justification is just a pretext. But if that's just a pretext, what's the actual reason? I haven't seen a good answer yet. I honestly don't think we'll know the true story for decades.
    - phatfish 5y ago
      The reason? Same as most other people with power, more power. It's just dictators like Putin can act on the impulses of their ego and ignore everyone else. The power gained in this case is attempting to rebuild the Russian empire by "liberating" areas that have since become independent countries and want nothing to do with the Russian rule.
    - tguvot 5y ago
      Google translate this: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20... It was auto published on 26 on ria and bunch of other sites and than purged. It explains everything
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        "Can't translate this." - typically useful error message from Google.
        tguvot 5y ago
        Just copy/paste text. But overall idea .. "russia is restoring russian world by combining together russian people: greatrussian (russians), small russians (ukranians) and whiterussians... putin took upon himself historic mission of finally solving ukranian question... .. with each year it would have been harder and harder to bring ukraine back to russia... it doesn't means that ukraine as state dissappear but it recharted, restructured and returned to be part of the russian world... etc.. etc.. etc.. see the idea ?
        CamperBob2 5y ago
        Yes; that sounds similar in some ways to Fiona Hill's take on it at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-... .
        tguvot 5y ago
        well... reading article... she is right on spot. kinda same conclusions as I had a few days ago that made me wish to move away of population centers. kinda brings up a phrase that was thrown by some russian official or tv person a few years ago: "what's the need in the world that doesn't have russia in it"
      - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    - _trampeltier 5y ago
      I also I feel like I miss something there. Maybe was tricked into war by .. I don't know .. and the war is just collateral demage. Maybe his information had been so wrong because he and all people around him lives in a bubble.
    - vardump 5y ago
      Perhaps natural resources? Usually it's always more or less that, when anything gets attacked. Or geostrategic position.
    - t89893789 5y ago
      I can't think the Russian people are pleased to see war again so close to home. If there were free elections there now I reckon Putin would be hammered. As Karl Popper and other people have said, free elections are the best mechanism for preventing governments from making stupid mistakes. The fear of being removed from power makes them much more cautious in their actions. The best illustration of this in action can be seen by comparing what happened to Churchill and Stalin at the end of WW2. Churchill made some stupid statements about the Labour party being like the Gestapo and he got crushed in the 1945 election. When Churchill got back into power a few years later he did not undo the Labour reforms. Stalin, who had killed millions of his own people in the 1930's and dithered like a frightened child at the Nazi invasion in 1941, stayed in power to kill more of his own people until his death in 1953. The Russian people deserve better.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Technically, cuba working with the soviets caused USA to propose a LOT of sanctions against them (that are still there), and also planed a false-flag attack on US soil to get a 'reason' to attack cuba - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods ..so ukraine joining nato is not that much different. What putin is doing now is something along the Kosovo playbook... someone has interest in some area somewhere (us in kosovo, putin in donbas/lugansk), they help the separatists, the main country fights back, and then they start war (bombing in case of yugoslavia, this now in case of ukraine), to get what they want. Putin also mentioned weapons of mass destruction in ukraine ("the iraq playbook" USA used), but the theory didn't get a lot of traction. Also, it's just the beginning of the war, so you can expect the propaganda machines to work 24/7 on both sides, so what the truth is, will probably never be know and will be rewritten by the winners and CNN.
      - rosndo 5y ago
        > .so ukraine joining nato is not that much different Yeah it is, the Baltics are already in NATO. Ukraine joining would not significantly change the balance of power in the region. Cuba on the other hand was far more significant because the Soviet Union did not otherwise have assets so close to the US. Also the US never invaded Cuba in the way Russia invaded Ukraine. Their actions were more comparable to Russian support of DPR and LPR.
        ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        But russia has to stop nato somewhere... it was too weak to do it with the baltics, and it's doing that now. USA definitely had the plan for a war with cuba, but it luckily didn't happen. They did start many other wars in the meantime, mostly on the other side of the world.
        rosndo 5y ago
        Nato is a defensive alliance, why exactly does Russia need to stop it? NATO would never attack Russia, a nuclear power capable of ending the world as we know it. > USA definitely had the plan for a war with cuba, but it luckily didn't happen This is a really weird way to write “USA decided not to fight a war with Cuba”, everybody makes all kinds of plans.
    - skissane 5y ago
      > But if that's just a pretext, what's the actual reason? I haven't seen a good answer yet. Because in Putin's mind, "Soviet" and "Russian" are synonyms. In other words, the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 was to him the breakup of Russia, and as a Russian nationalist he sees that as a great tragedy. He blames it on the Communists for adopting a constitutional structure which contained within it the seeds of separatism; the Communists only ever meant it as lip-service, and as long as they remained in control that was all it was, but as they lost control those seeds began to sprout and 1991 was the result. To him, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, etc, are not neighbouring foreign nationalities, they are Russians, they are traditional ethnic minorities of the Russian nationality, just as he views Chechens, Tatars, Tuvans, etc, as being. He wants to "Make Russia Great Again" by reversing the breakup of 1991, or getting as close to that goal as he possibly can. And annexing large parts of Ukraine and installing one or more puppet governments in the rest is, in his mind, an important step towards that ultimate goal.
      - nl 5y ago
        I think this is basically right. He believes in the Russian Empire. You can hear threads if this in the speeches he gives to Russian audiences where he argues that Ukraine isn't a real country.
      - KineticLensman 5y ago
        > Because in Putin's mind, "Soviet" and "Russian" are synonyms. He's actually going further back than that, to the various Rus empires that predated the modern countries of Russia, Ukraine, etc.
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      This may BE the information you were missing. To some extent I think the extensive propaganda about numerous political/celebrity figures being great and powerful and capable has been a sham from the beginning. I would call the war on Ukraine 'put up or shut up' time, where reality tests the value of the claims that have been made for many, many years. I think we've all been told a lot of lies for a long time. History's monsters so often seem to be dumb, deeply fallible, weak humans in the wrong place at the wrong time, doubling down on wrong decisions. I've seen people being unsettled and afraid and going 'but what if it's a feint and then the REAL Russian Army comes to obliterate everything', in the face of the shitshow we're seeing. Not an accident: the effort that went into putting forth that narrative has been extensive. But once tested, we see where reality lies.
      - helloworld11 5y ago
        Many leaders who had the wherewithal to establish themselves in power can then coast on the inertial force of their authority and reputation for years or even decades in a way that makes them continue looking capable. The frequent reality however is that coming to power politically isn't necessarily the same as keeping it or making sound decisions in many other area (such as military strategy). Thus, an established dictator can turn into a complete bumbler, but because of earlier successes in his domestic political arena, people keep thinking he has some sort of clever plan up his sleeve in any other scenario though it might not at all be the case. Hitler was an example of this. He cleverly came to power, astutely conserved himself in power for years, but then badly fucked up almost from the beginning once he embarked on major military adventures. However, many people kept believing him even militarily clever because of previous political cleverness. I believe something similar is the case with Putin (This is not a comparison of Putin with Hitler in moral terms, just an example)
    - eternalban 5y ago
      I commented on this a while back (before things got kinetic) regarding the puzzling framing [by Western leaders and media] of the late December treaty proposals (to US and NATO respectively) published in English by Kremlin. At the time, I assumed the media was directed to focus on Ukraine to allow so-called off-ramps to Putin (so he can save face). You can trivially find these treaties on the net if you search for them. Today Lavrov again repeated the RF's demands for removal of US's nuclear weapons from Europe. (And yes, I too believe we are not privy to what has transpired in the past few months, if not past year between the various powers. And there is no way short of collective madness in Russian leadership that this "operation" will be limited to Ukraine.)
  - ezconnect 5y ago
    They waited 8 years for the Minsk accord to be implemented while ethnic Russians are dying and being displaced. When the Berlin wall was removed they were assured NATO will not arrive on their borders, that was decades ago. Ukraine in NATO was the redline it was communicated for how many years now. Before the invasion Zelensky wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence and the German foreign minister said the accord it's signed was not legally binding giving a go signal that yes you can develop your own nuclear weapon. The west just don't care and wanted war because it will benefit them. Sadly the Ukrainians and Russians will be the one suffering. Russia will survive for sure it's has vast resource and food supply. We will probably just see the old cold war back again with all the defense company so happy to sell weapons to everybody.
    - SantalBlush 5y ago
      Russia already annexed Crimea, a Ukranian territory, so this is not a convincing argument.
      - ezconnect 5y ago
        They democratically joined Russia, because of the US sponsored coup d'état. It seems HN readers only believes in democracy when their bombing helpless countries. Ukraine crisis could have been prevented if only the west have common sense but no, the profit on wars and it's so sad to see.
    - type0 5y ago
      > Before the invasion Zelensky wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence and the German foreign minister said the accord it's signed was not legally binding giving a go signal that yes you can develop your own nuclear weapon. The west just don't care and wanted war because it will benefit them. One does not avoid a war by starting a war
      - ezconnect 5y ago
- hericium 5y ago
  > Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? He's a hardliner, I would not say that he could be frustrated easily but this absolutely is not an easy situation. His currency has collapsed and his country is on the brink of defaulting on foreign debt. He has no support anywhere but from his puppet dictator Lukashenko. I think Putin did not expect such coordination and global effort in sanctioning Russia over Ukraine invasion. I believe that he wanted to take over Ukraine in just a few days and was surprised by Ukraine's defence and multiple desertions in his own army. He has decisions to make and choices are poor.
  - pengaru 5y ago
    > I believe that he wanted to take over Ukraine in just a few days and was surprised by Ukraine's defence and multiple desertions in his own army. Everything I have read that isn't heavily biased anti-Russia propaganda says Russia has exercised enormous restraint so far in this invasion. There's no reason I see to believe Putin's been surprised by Ukraine's defenses, it's not as if all of Russia's forces at the border have been deployed and overwhelmed. Last I read not even half had mobilized. It's more like Putin pushed forward what he hoped was enough to compel a low-casualty outcome in his favor. What happens next seems likely to be substantially more painful for the Ukrainians, but I hope I'm wrong.
    - Ajef 5y ago
      While I mostly agree with your assessment you lack to point out that using less troops saves costs, bombing less cities/civilians will make installing a controllable regime to rule there easier. These are all strategic decisions. Implying Putin held back for the sake of the ukranian people is misleading.
      - tomp 5y ago
        He definitely held back for the sake of civilians. Otherwise we wouldn’t have videos of civilians stopping tanks.
- Osiris 5y ago
  I just read an article that US intelligence is getting reports that Putin is having outbursts and not acting like his usual calculating self. Given his age, it's certainly within the realm of possibility that he is suffering from cognitive decline.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-order-escalation-violence-ukraine-us-officials-sa-rcna18026 https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-... >Western intelligence agencies have good visibility into Putin right now and are closely watching his moves for any significant behavioral changes, several current and former officials said. Four U.S. officials said there is no intelligence saying he is mentally unstable, but they said he has displayed a different pattern of behavior from in the past. >The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is frustrated and directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign and the worldwide condemnation of his actions, one former and two current U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence said. >That is unusual, they say, because Putin, a former intelligence officer, usually keeps his emotions in check.
    - refurb 5y ago
      I assume this is about as reliable as “Iraqi soldiers pushed over incubators with Kuwaiti babies in them” (read: not accurate at all).
- MrDresden 5y ago
  Like so many others have mentioned here, he isn't the same persona he used to be (if he ever truly was). Dangerous ofcourse, but a mastermind he isn't.
  - type0 5y ago
    I think he's got longtime COVID that muddled his brains
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? I mean... yes, clearly! Obviously, there's the Ukraine thing, but even before that, look at photos and footage of him when slighted at conferences and so on. He's not as emotionally open as a Trump or a Burlusconi, but he's no stoic as politicians go.
- TheFattestNinja 5y ago
  It's safe to assume this operation was in the planning at least since 2014. 8 years. It had weeks of operations at the border to sort out the logistics. And it had overwhelming military/intelligence superiority and access to the front from 3 sides. It should have taken hours to break through. The operation was a shamble, even if it might succeed over time. In 20 years of NATO operations over 5 different war theatres there have been 74 captured soldiers (src: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/prisoners-in-the-war-on-terror-captured-nato-personnel-since-2001 https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/prisoners-in-the-war-o... ). Here there have been 10's in a matter of days. Either he's gone full potato, or he's still very calculating but everyone around him is feeding false information upwards to "look nice" and because they can't say no. Neither scenario bodes extremely well for his chances of success.
- stormking 5y ago
  Yes, he and especially his fans have been working on establishing the image of a strategic mastermind. But in reality, he's just a short, puffy old man, living in ridiculous kitschy palaces, sitting on ridiculous long tables because he's afraid of even his most loyal underlings. With attacking Ukraine, he made a huge mistake. He simply counted on the west doing nothing, as usual, but this time he went too far. But because he's just a powerful man, not a great man, he's unable to admit that.
  - vagrantJin 5y ago
    > He simply counted on the west doing nothing, as usual Looks like he was right. I don't think a man who has run Russia for decades will suddenly have a brain fart and attack another sovereign state on a whim. Think carefully. Think very carefully.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Sure he does. The picture he had portrayed of him doesn't match reality. Just look at how scared he is of catching COVID. Since 2 years, almost no one is allowed near to him. The amount of COVID tests his bodyguards and others need to do daily is pretty insane too. Everyone he sees/greets needs to be in isolation for 2 weeks upfront to get near. https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/10/02/thanks-to-covid-19-vladimir-putin-has-become-almost-invisible https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/10/02/thanks-to-covid-... And many other sources for many years. Here's a video from him in a hazmat suite, one of his last public appearances - https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-russia-admits-virus-numbers/story?id=69768452 https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-... Fyi, sitting at a 20 meter table is not a public appearance and Putin has met his big/important friend Xi only virtually as far as I'm aware the last years. I don't think he's calculated at all. Many things have wrong that he didn't suspect: - Their 'advanced' malware was finished off by Microsoft within 3 hours - Their 'advanced hacking culture' has been reversed within days, state tv programs and websites have gone offline within hours. - Their decade long effort of a propaganda machine has been severely reduced within days ( RT, ...) - Their portrait of having an 'advanced military' has been decimated. The world now knows that his army is mostly old, rusty, unmotivated and his troops are clueless. - He miscalculated Ukraine, who he practically trained for 8 years. He also raised serious awareness under Ukrainians what happens with inaction. - He's giving up his independence, isolating himself from the world and it seems that he's fully aware of that. - He is constantly ( for years) angering his biggest and most profitable clients ( Europe). He overstepped his carefully crafted image and failed every step on the way. Not even taken into consideration that he literally had 8 years ( or more) to plan this. His image of being a world power ( while Russia has the same GDP as 30 years ago and America has grown 14 fold) is just an illusion, but real for him. We have given him too much attention on the world stage. He has nukes, not brains... Should have been known years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 ). Europe is prioritizing energy independence now, Russia still had multiple decades to profit from that to improve their situation. Now, they became 100% China dependent.

I don’t get comments like these. Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? My take is that he is cold and calculating. Not one I’d take lightly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
klyrs 5y ago
I thought he was cold and calculating until he attacked Ukraine. This looks downright ham-handed and heedless compared to the maneuvering of the decades leading up to now. He's made a damned fool of himself, if you ask me.
- lliamander 5y ago
  It looks stupid to me too. Which is precisely why I think there's information I'm missing. Like, I've seen arguments that the whole "Ukraine joining NATO" justification is just a pretext. But if that's just a pretext, what's the actual reason? I haven't seen a good answer yet. I honestly don't think we'll know the true story for decades.
  - phatfish 5y ago
    The reason? Same as most other people with power, more power. It's just dictators like Putin can act on the impulses of their ego and ignore everyone else. The power gained in this case is attempting to rebuild the Russian empire by "liberating" areas that have since become independent countries and want nothing to do with the Russian rule.
  - tguvot 5y ago
    Google translate this: https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20... It was auto published on 26 on ria and bunch of other sites and than purged. It explains everything
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      "Can't translate this." - typically useful error message from Google.
      - tguvot 5y ago
        Just copy/paste text. But overall idea .. "russia is restoring russian world by combining together russian people: greatrussian (russians), small russians (ukranians) and whiterussians... putin took upon himself historic mission of finally solving ukranian question... .. with each year it would have been harder and harder to bring ukraine back to russia... it doesn't means that ukraine as state dissappear but it recharted, restructured and returned to be part of the russian world... etc.. etc.. etc.. see the idea ?
        CamperBob2 5y ago
        Yes; that sounds similar in some ways to Fiona Hill's take on it at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-... .
        tguvot 5y ago
        well... reading article... she is right on spot. kinda same conclusions as I had a few days ago that made me wish to move away of population centers. kinda brings up a phrase that was thrown by some russian official or tv person a few years ago: "what's the need in the world that doesn't have russia in it"
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
  - _trampeltier 5y ago
    I also I feel like I miss something there. Maybe was tricked into war by .. I don't know .. and the war is just collateral demage. Maybe his information had been so wrong because he and all people around him lives in a bubble.
  - vardump 5y ago
    Perhaps natural resources? Usually it's always more or less that, when anything gets attacked. Or geostrategic position.
  - t89893789 5y ago
    I can't think the Russian people are pleased to see war again so close to home. If there were free elections there now I reckon Putin would be hammered. As Karl Popper and other people have said, free elections are the best mechanism for preventing governments from making stupid mistakes. The fear of being removed from power makes them much more cautious in their actions. The best illustration of this in action can be seen by comparing what happened to Churchill and Stalin at the end of WW2. Churchill made some stupid statements about the Labour party being like the Gestapo and he got crushed in the 1945 election. When Churchill got back into power a few years later he did not undo the Labour reforms. Stalin, who had killed millions of his own people in the 1930's and dithered like a frightened child at the Nazi invasion in 1941, stayed in power to kill more of his own people until his death in 1953. The Russian people deserve better.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Technically, cuba working with the soviets caused USA to propose a LOT of sanctions against them (that are still there), and also planed a false-flag attack on US soil to get a 'reason' to attack cuba - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods ..so ukraine joining nato is not that much different. What putin is doing now is something along the Kosovo playbook... someone has interest in some area somewhere (us in kosovo, putin in donbas/lugansk), they help the separatists, the main country fights back, and then they start war (bombing in case of yugoslavia, this now in case of ukraine), to get what they want. Putin also mentioned weapons of mass destruction in ukraine ("the iraq playbook" USA used), but the theory didn't get a lot of traction. Also, it's just the beginning of the war, so you can expect the propaganda machines to work 24/7 on both sides, so what the truth is, will probably never be know and will be rewritten by the winners and CNN.
    - rosndo 5y ago
      > .so ukraine joining nato is not that much different Yeah it is, the Baltics are already in NATO. Ukraine joining would not significantly change the balance of power in the region. Cuba on the other hand was far more significant because the Soviet Union did not otherwise have assets so close to the US. Also the US never invaded Cuba in the way Russia invaded Ukraine. Their actions were more comparable to Russian support of DPR and LPR.
      - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        But russia has to stop nato somewhere... it was too weak to do it with the baltics, and it's doing that now. USA definitely had the plan for a war with cuba, but it luckily didn't happen. They did start many other wars in the meantime, mostly on the other side of the world.
        rosndo 5y ago
        Nato is a defensive alliance, why exactly does Russia need to stop it? NATO would never attack Russia, a nuclear power capable of ending the world as we know it. > USA definitely had the plan for a war with cuba, but it luckily didn't happen This is a really weird way to write “USA decided not to fight a war with Cuba”, everybody makes all kinds of plans.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > But if that's just a pretext, what's the actual reason? I haven't seen a good answer yet. Because in Putin's mind, "Soviet" and "Russian" are synonyms. In other words, the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 was to him the breakup of Russia, and as a Russian nationalist he sees that as a great tragedy. He blames it on the Communists for adopting a constitutional structure which contained within it the seeds of separatism; the Communists only ever meant it as lip-service, and as long as they remained in control that was all it was, but as they lost control those seeds began to sprout and 1991 was the result. To him, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, etc, are not neighbouring foreign nationalities, they are Russians, they are traditional ethnic minorities of the Russian nationality, just as he views Chechens, Tatars, Tuvans, etc, as being. He wants to "Make Russia Great Again" by reversing the breakup of 1991, or getting as close to that goal as he possibly can. And annexing large parts of Ukraine and installing one or more puppet governments in the rest is, in his mind, an important step towards that ultimate goal.
    - nl 5y ago
      I think this is basically right. He believes in the Russian Empire. You can hear threads if this in the speeches he gives to Russian audiences where he argues that Ukraine isn't a real country.
    - KineticLensman 5y ago
      > Because in Putin's mind, "Soviet" and "Russian" are synonyms. He's actually going further back than that, to the various Rus empires that predated the modern countries of Russia, Ukraine, etc.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    This may BE the information you were missing. To some extent I think the extensive propaganda about numerous political/celebrity figures being great and powerful and capable has been a sham from the beginning. I would call the war on Ukraine 'put up or shut up' time, where reality tests the value of the claims that have been made for many, many years. I think we've all been told a lot of lies for a long time. History's monsters so often seem to be dumb, deeply fallible, weak humans in the wrong place at the wrong time, doubling down on wrong decisions. I've seen people being unsettled and afraid and going 'but what if it's a feint and then the REAL Russian Army comes to obliterate everything', in the face of the shitshow we're seeing. Not an accident: the effort that went into putting forth that narrative has been extensive. But once tested, we see where reality lies.
    - helloworld11 5y ago
      Many leaders who had the wherewithal to establish themselves in power can then coast on the inertial force of their authority and reputation for years or even decades in a way that makes them continue looking capable. The frequent reality however is that coming to power politically isn't necessarily the same as keeping it or making sound decisions in many other area (such as military strategy). Thus, an established dictator can turn into a complete bumbler, but because of earlier successes in his domestic political arena, people keep thinking he has some sort of clever plan up his sleeve in any other scenario though it might not at all be the case. Hitler was an example of this. He cleverly came to power, astutely conserved himself in power for years, but then badly fucked up almost from the beginning once he embarked on major military adventures. However, many people kept believing him even militarily clever because of previous political cleverness. I believe something similar is the case with Putin (This is not a comparison of Putin with Hitler in moral terms, just an example)
  - eternalban 5y ago
    I commented on this a while back (before things got kinetic) regarding the puzzling framing [by Western leaders and media] of the late December treaty proposals (to US and NATO respectively) published in English by Kremlin. At the time, I assumed the media was directed to focus on Ukraine to allow so-called off-ramps to Putin (so he can save face). You can trivially find these treaties on the net if you search for them. Today Lavrov again repeated the RF's demands for removal of US's nuclear weapons from Europe. (And yes, I too believe we are not privy to what has transpired in the past few months, if not past year between the various powers. And there is no way short of collective madness in Russian leadership that this "operation" will be limited to Ukraine.)
- ezconnect 5y ago
  They waited 8 years for the Minsk accord to be implemented while ethnic Russians are dying and being displaced. When the Berlin wall was removed they were assured NATO will not arrive on their borders, that was decades ago. Ukraine in NATO was the redline it was communicated for how many years now. Before the invasion Zelensky wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence and the German foreign minister said the accord it's signed was not legally binding giving a go signal that yes you can develop your own nuclear weapon. The west just don't care and wanted war because it will benefit them. Sadly the Ukrainians and Russians will be the one suffering. Russia will survive for sure it's has vast resource and food supply. We will probably just see the old cold war back again with all the defense company so happy to sell weapons to everybody.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    Russia already annexed Crimea, a Ukranian territory, so this is not a convincing argument.
    - ezconnect 5y ago
      They democratically joined Russia, because of the US sponsored coup d'état. It seems HN readers only believes in democracy when their bombing helpless countries. Ukraine crisis could have been prevented if only the west have common sense but no, the profit on wars and it's so sad to see.
  - type0 5y ago
    > Before the invasion Zelensky wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence and the German foreign minister said the accord it's signed was not legally binding giving a go signal that yes you can develop your own nuclear weapon. The west just don't care and wanted war because it will benefit them. One does not avoid a war by starting a war
    - ezconnect 5y ago
hericium 5y ago
> Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? He's a hardliner, I would not say that he could be frustrated easily but this absolutely is not an easy situation. His currency has collapsed and his country is on the brink of defaulting on foreign debt. He has no support anywhere but from his puppet dictator Lukashenko. I think Putin did not expect such coordination and global effort in sanctioning Russia over Ukraine invasion. I believe that he wanted to take over Ukraine in just a few days and was surprised by Ukraine's defence and multiple desertions in his own army. He has decisions to make and choices are poor.
- pengaru 5y ago
  > I believe that he wanted to take over Ukraine in just a few days and was surprised by Ukraine's defence and multiple desertions in his own army. Everything I have read that isn't heavily biased anti-Russia propaganda says Russia has exercised enormous restraint so far in this invasion. There's no reason I see to believe Putin's been surprised by Ukraine's defenses, it's not as if all of Russia's forces at the border have been deployed and overwhelmed. Last I read not even half had mobilized. It's more like Putin pushed forward what he hoped was enough to compel a low-casualty outcome in his favor. What happens next seems likely to be substantially more painful for the Ukrainians, but I hope I'm wrong.
  - Ajef 5y ago
    While I mostly agree with your assessment you lack to point out that using less troops saves costs, bombing less cities/civilians will make installing a controllable regime to rule there easier. These are all strategic decisions. Implying Putin held back for the sake of the ukranian people is misleading.
    - tomp 5y ago
      He definitely held back for the sake of civilians. Otherwise we wouldn’t have videos of civilians stopping tanks.
Osiris 5y ago
I just read an article that US intelligence is getting reports that Putin is having outbursts and not acting like his usual calculating self. Given his age, it's certainly within the realm of possibility that he is suffering from cognitive decline.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-order-escalation-violence-ukraine-us-officials-sa-rcna18026 https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-... >Western intelligence agencies have good visibility into Putin right now and are closely watching his moves for any significant behavioral changes, several current and former officials said. Four U.S. officials said there is no intelligence saying he is mentally unstable, but they said he has displayed a different pattern of behavior from in the past. >The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is frustrated and directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign and the worldwide condemnation of his actions, one former and two current U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence said. >That is unusual, they say, because Putin, a former intelligence officer, usually keeps his emotions in check.
  - refurb 5y ago
    I assume this is about as reliable as “Iraqi soldiers pushed over incubators with Kuwaiti babies in them” (read: not accurate at all).
MrDresden 5y ago
Like so many others have mentioned here, he isn't the same persona he used to be (if he ever truly was). Dangerous ofcourse, but a mastermind he isn't.
- type0 5y ago
  I think he's got longtime COVID that muddled his brains
rsynnott 5y ago
> Does Putin strike you as an overly emotional guy who gets frustrated easily? I mean... yes, clearly! Obviously, there's the Ukraine thing, but even before that, look at photos and footage of him when slighted at conferences and so on. He's not as emotionally open as a Trump or a Burlusconi, but he's no stoic as politicians go.
TheFattestNinja 5y ago
It's safe to assume this operation was in the planning at least since 2014. 8 years. It had weeks of operations at the border to sort out the logistics. And it had overwhelming military/intelligence superiority and access to the front from 3 sides. It should have taken hours to break through. The operation was a shamble, even if it might succeed over time. In 20 years of NATO operations over 5 different war theatres there have been 74 captured soldiers (src: https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/prisoners-in-the-war-on-terror-captured-nato-personnel-since-2001 https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/prisoners-in-the-war-o... ). Here there have been 10's in a matter of days. Either he's gone full potato, or he's still very calculating but everyone around him is feeding false information upwards to "look nice" and because they can't say no. Neither scenario bodes extremely well for his chances of success.
stormking 5y ago
Yes, he and especially his fans have been working on establishing the image of a strategic mastermind. But in reality, he's just a short, puffy old man, living in ridiculous kitschy palaces, sitting on ridiculous long tables because he's afraid of even his most loyal underlings. With attacking Ukraine, he made a huge mistake. He simply counted on the west doing nothing, as usual, but this time he went too far. But because he's just a powerful man, not a great man, he's unable to admit that.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  > He simply counted on the west doing nothing, as usual Looks like he was right. I don't think a man who has run Russia for decades will suddenly have a brain fart and attack another sovereign state on a whim. Think carefully. Think very carefully.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Sure he does. The picture he had portrayed of him doesn't match reality. Just look at how scared he is of catching COVID. Since 2 years, almost no one is allowed near to him. The amount of COVID tests his bodyguards and others need to do daily is pretty insane too. Everyone he sees/greets needs to be in isolation for 2 weeks upfront to get near. https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/10/02/thanks-to-covid-19-vladimir-putin-has-become-almost-invisible https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/10/02/thanks-to-covid-... And many other sources for many years. Here's a video from him in a hazmat suite, one of his last public appearances - https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-russia-admits-virus-numbers/story?id=69768452 https://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-... Fyi, sitting at a 20 meter table is not a public appearance and Putin has met his big/important friend Xi only virtually as far as I'm aware the last years. I don't think he's calculated at all. Many things have wrong that he didn't suspect: - Their 'advanced' malware was finished off by Microsoft within 3 hours - Their 'advanced hacking culture' has been reversed within days, state tv programs and websites have gone offline within hours. - Their decade long effort of a propaganda machine has been severely reduced within days ( RT, ...) - Their portrait of having an 'advanced military' has been decimated. The world now knows that his army is mostly old, rusty, unmotivated and his troops are clueless. - He miscalculated Ukraine, who he practically trained for 8 years. He also raised serious awareness under Ukrainians what happens with inaction. - He's giving up his independence, isolating himself from the world and it seems that he's fully aware of that. - He is constantly ( for years) angering his biggest and most profitable clients ( Europe). He overstepped his carefully crafted image and failed every step on the way. Not even taken into consideration that he literally had 8 years ( or more) to plan this. His image of being a world power ( while Russia has the same GDP as 30 years ago and America has grown 14 fold) is just an illusion, but real for him. We have given him too much attention on the world stage. He has nukes, not brains... Should have been known years ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 ). Europe is prioritizing energy independence now, Russia still had multiple decades to profit from that to improve their situation. Now, they became 100% China dependent.