In many ways, Putin is a known quantity. “He has always been a killer,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted last week.
But now he, and many others with access to classified briefings, worry that Putin may be “unhinged.”
All will concede the Kremlin is impenetrable, and U.S. intelligence doesn’t know what Putin’s state of mind is, but can only analyze. However, a common theme among those privy to briefings is that Putin has changed in some way over the last few days.
He’s described as “frustrated” by the Russian military’s plan to conquer Ukraine going off the rails, and “enraged” by the Western sanctions slapped on Russia. Other terms used by Washington insiders to describe him include “disconnected from reality” and “unhinged.” They’ve remarked on his pandemic isolation, and photos showing him oddly sitting at a distance from others in his inner cabinet at weirdly long tables.
There’s a widely shared viewed that he’s cut himself off from those who would give him honest advice, including his oligarch friends, and is now surrounded solely by sycophants who see their function as agreeing with anything he says. That can lead to poor, and reckless, decision-making. Others remark that he seems more emotional than usual, which also could cause him to make rash decisions.
A former Trump briefer summed up the views of many when she said Putin isn’t “insane or unhinged,” but rather “highly emotional right now … and he has been very, very isolated, which adds to that emotional sense. But I don’t think he’s crazy.”
One thing he always is, calm or angry, in control or emotional, is ruthless. And deadly.
Photo: Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, picking boogers out of his nose