One of the United States’s most highly regarded foreign affairs analysts says after 22 years in power snd two years of the most stringent COVID-19 isolation, Russian President Vladimir Putin could be “a little bit crazy”. Fareed Zakaria said, “People often say leaders after 10 years in office go a little bit crazy. Think of Margaret Thatcher, Blair, Helmut Kohl. Putin has been in office for 22 years and two years of COVID isolation. So maybe there’s something going on there and he’s lost some connection to reality.”
In an interview to The Wire, Fareed Zakaria, who is the host of CNN’s GPS and a columnist for the Washington Post, pointed out that during COVID-19, Putin lived in an absolute bubble and people who met him had to isolate for two weeks before they were granted access. He also pointed out that he has his own praetorian guard and is not protected by regular Russian security.
Zakaria said Putin had a fantasy that Ukraine will welcome Russian soldiers. That is close to the opposite of what’s happened. The Russian invasion is not going according to plan, and that’s very worrying because Putin, as he may already have started in the last 48 hours, will step up the level of missile and air attacks.
“I can’t see how he can back down and it’s very hard for the West to allow Putin to win,” Zakaria said. The situation is therefore poised to get a a lot worse before it gets better.
In a comprehensive interview that discusses the compromises suggested by President Zelensky in his ABC TV interview and the prospects of dialogue leading to a resolution, the view that Putin could have achieved what he wanted without resorting to war, the strength and weaknesses of the Russo-Chinese alliance, the extent to which China will support Russia, the Biden administrations “blunder” of uniting rather than separating its two main adversaries, John Mearsheimer’s view that the present crisis is the West’s fault, the threat to use nuclear weapons, the impact of sanctions and the pull-out of major western companies from Russia, and the future of Putin as the ruler of Russia, there was also a substantial discussion about the impact of the Ukraine crisis and the reassertion of the Russian threat on the US’s focus on the Indo-Pacific and the importance of the Quad.
