Judging Putin

Tony Simpson says: March 15, 2022 at 12:37 pmReply

I’m sure you agree that both are wrong. Putin is not a killer (although he is ruthless) nor is he a genius. But he does suffer from the problem experienced by all authoritarian rulers. Having pushed his luck and achieved success e.g. Crimea, he must go on otherwise if he fails his supporters are likely to abandon him. But like other dictators he also surrounds himself with sycophants who encourage him to take bigger and bigger risks until he is trapped inside his own monstosity which he cannot control. The most likely thing to stop him at this juncture is a military revolt. The Russian forces can’t possibly like what is happening to them on the ground and they hae been mauled before both in Chechnya and in Afghanistan. The senior officer class will have been survivors of both those disasters and they won’t want another one. At the ordinary plodding infantry level they will have quickly discoverered that they were lied to when they were told they would be treated as liberators and so they won’t be enthusiastic about fighting especially as the body bags mount. I just hope Putin doesn’t turn to desperate expedients when it keeps going wrong