RT by @bueti: What we have learnt about Putin? My comment.
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Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson has reverberated worldwide and has already been analyzed in great detail by social and traditional media. Since being hired as a Russian foreign policy analyst at @PISM_Poland in 2000, I have researched dozens of Putin's speeches and interviews professionally. I have written countless articles and non-public notes on this subject. I have also had the opportunity to comment on Putin's speeches in interviews and even live on commercial television. And to me, Putin became quite dull.

Did I learn anything new about Putin?

Both yes and no.

Putin has always been obsessed with his myth of the Russian past. The myth of eternal Russian power is partly responsible for his trauma over the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, as we recall, he regards as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
Nor is there any news that Putin is obsessed with Ukraine. He agrees with Zbig Brzezinski that Russia, deprived of Ukraine, will never be an empire.

(Brzezinski, incidentally, borrowed this observation from Marshal Pilsudski of Poland, who formulated this view as early as 1920).

For Putin, on the other hand, Russia and the empire are a victim. Without an empire, Russia does not exist. Either it is a superpower, or it is doomed to non-existence.
Therefore, for Putin, the war with Ukraine is existential for Russia. There is no room for compromise here. Thus, Ukraine has no choice but to defeat Putin if it wants to exist—nothing new to see here again.

Nevertheless, I found something interesting in this interview - well, Putin's obsession with Russian history has already turned into Putin's obsession with his place in Russian history.
Putin is keen to talk about a thousand years of Russia because he is about to join the pantheon of rulers who ruled Russia the longest.
Ivan the T…

🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/SlawomirDebski/status/1756695891153445011#m

[2024-02-11 15:05 UTC]