To understand Vladimir Putin’s personality, we must look at his childhood. His grandfather was the personal cook of Lenin and then of Stalin, the two architects of the Russian revolution. From a professional point of view, he was first a secret agent for 15 years, then Prime Minister for 4 and a half years, and President for 18 years. He is still president and will probably be extended again at the end of his current term in 2024.
Putin is not a paranoid person, but he has his own logic. He is a child of the streets, someone who fights to the end. He is clearly rigid. When he has decided on something, he is ready to go through with it, no matter what the consequences. Understanding the war in Ukraine is therefore to understand Vladimir Putin. He is someone who has had a taste for secrecy since his childhood. To this taste for secrecy, he associates an unfailing determination. In his notes to the KGB, Putin is reproached for not always having a sense of danger. His judo friends have always noted his stubbornness in combat. Even when he was facing bigger and stronger opponents, he fought to the end.
Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin is above all a pragmatist. Several times in his career as a KGB agent, judo champion, and politician, he knew how to turn a situation around, to change his position when he felt that the situation was really desperate for him. Another aspect is that Putin has always had a very long-term vision, a strategic vision, which is probably lacking in a certain number of Western leaders. For others, Putin failed in his career at the KGB. He was fired because he did not meet the KGB’s requirements. The KGB was right because he is a dangerous person. These same people consider the current war against Ukraine as the personal revenge of Putin against a country that became independent, free, and chose its voice. In this war, he has crossed the red line of no return. This is the danger. What Vladimir Putin wants to do by attacking Ukraine is to destroy the aspiration to dependence and freedom of the Ukrainian people.
The heart of the problem for Putin is the democratic transformation of Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014. Ukrainians and Russians are really brotherly peoples who are very similar and the contacts are terribly dense between the two nations. The Ukrainians, by putting down a regime similar to Mr. Putin’s in its methods of governance, represented an existential danger to the Putin regime because it was a subliminal message to the Russians: “We did it, we are doing it for the same reasons that prevent you from living properly under the Putin regime”.
What Vladimir Putin wants to do today by attacking Ukraine in this way is to destroy the aspiration to dependence and freedom of the Ukrainian people.
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