‘It’s not rational’: Putin’s bizarre speech
wrecks his once pragmatic image
Analysis: President makes appeal to Ukraine’s military
to abandon its ‘drug-addicted, neo-Nazi’ leaders
Andrew Roth
in Moscow
Fri 25 Feb
2022 19.30 GMT
Looking
dead-eyed into the camera on Friday, Vladimir Putin gave one of the most
bizarre speeches of his 22 years as Russia’s leader, a directive that managed
to sound alarming even in a week when he has ordered tanks into Ukraine and
missile strikes on Kyiv.
“Once again
I speak to the Ukrainian soldiers,” he said, addressing his enemy. “Do not
allow neo-Nazis and Banderites to use your children, your wives and the elderly
as a human shield. Take power into your own hands. It seems that it will be
easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and
neo-Nazis.”
The speech
seemed to be ripped from an alternate reality – or from the second world war,
where Putin appears to be spending more of his time as he launches the kind of
broad military offensive not seen in Europe for nearly 70 years.
All this
week, Putin’s megalomaniacal tendencies have been on display like never before.
He has summoned his aides for a surreal national security council that
resembled a television reality show and launched tirades about Lenin and
decisions made nearly 100 years ago.
He has
also, for the first time, spoken about his maximalist goals in this war: regime
change in Kyiv, toppling the government of Volodymyr Zelenskiy and replacing it
with a more pliant leadership. Putin’s call for a coup in Kyiv indicates that
if Russia wins this war, Zelenskiy will almost certainly not remain in power.
How he achieves that is anyone’s guess.
A number of
analysts predicted this as Russia deployed more than 60% of its ground forces
to Ukraine’s borders and demanded concessions that could never be granted.
But Putin’s
unhinged appearances and apparent drive to war have raised questions of whether
he remains a rational leader.
“Despite
Crimea and everything else, Putin had always seemed an extremely pragmatic
leader to me,” said Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik. “But now when
he’s gone in this war against Ukraine, the logic in the decision is all about
emotions, it’s not rational.”
Those
emotions are deeply rooted in history and the historical injustices suffered by
Russia. Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, said he saw Putin as a man
with “a historical map in his mind and a plan to use his military to achieve
it”.
Central to
that map is Ukraine, which he has described as an artificial state. “Modern
Ukraine was wholly and fully created by Russia,” Putin said in a historical
sleight-of-hand, “namely Bolshevik, communist Russia.”
To help
picture it, state TV ran a map earlier this week showing Ukraine cut up to
represent which parts were “presents” from various leaders, including Stalin,
Lenin and Khrushchev. Some commentators said it represents the partition that
Putin himself might be imagining if he gets his way.
While once
the map may have been viewed as fantasies or media trolling, a western diplomat
based in Ukraine on Friday pointed to his speeches and to that map as a serious
sign that Putin was weighing up a dismantling of the country.
“He is not
pretending anymore. For the first time I think he’s revealing who he really
is,” the diplomat wrote.
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