The German publication Der Spiegel interviews Russian political scientist Ivan Krastev about Vladimir Putin and Ukraine. Krastev’s insights about Putin I found very interesting, perhaps you will too. The whole interview is worth your time to read. Some samples:
Putin lives in historic analogies and metaphors. Those who are enemies of eternal Russia must be Nazis. And so, he was quick to portray the conflicts in the Donbas as a genocide.
In his understanding of history, things never happen spontaneously. If people demonstrate, he doesn’t ask: Why are they out on the streets? He asks: Who sent them?
When we take him at his word, he won’t surprise us anymore. If you read his essay from July of last year, in which he wrote that Ukrainians and Russians are a single people and he would never accept an anti-Russian Ukraine, you find out exactly what his intentions are.
He is part of the last Soviet generation. His job as a KGB agent was that of defending and protecting the Soviet Union. But he and his fellow agents were unable to protect it. (snip) They failed. I think he has a strong feeling of guilt.
If Putin had 'wooed' Ukraine instead of fomenting Donbas trouble and stealing Crimea, it would have been his cozy ally instead of a truculent enemy. Analogies about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar apply.
