Replying to gotham_now

Your framing isn’t helping you. I didn’t claim to “like” any part of the interview in the sense of supporting Putin. I stated I don’t explicitly.

My judgment was based on how well he articulated his perspective, not that all his claims would bear out as truthful. If you don’t expect leaders, particularly those in a war, to use truth when useful and lies when useful you deserve to be deceived.

That being said, I don’t speak Russian so it’s unclear to me if the translation should have been grandfather. Either way, I thought it was an obvious attempt to paint Zelensky as a hypocrite. I thought the interpretation of WWII’s beginning was odd too. I thought his explanation of Soviet era policy regarding the treatment of Ukrainians as a separate group was odd. I thought his unwillingness to release that reporter was an obvious missed opportunity when you consider the potential gains, but I think that was one of the few instances where his domestic audience concerns overrode his desire to appeal to a foreign audience.

He isn’t a madman, and that’s a narrative disaster for the West.
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Janis 1y ago 💬 1

Sorry for being snarky. I hate the man vehemently. I live in a country that borders Russia and falls squarely within their imperialist ambitions. Were it not for us getting into NATO two decades ago, I might be in a trench right now. Or dead already. So that inevitably colors my attitude towards him.

I get your point, but how else to frame him really?

He is detached from reality, and he demonstrates it clearly in this interview too. If he wasn’t, he would’ve never started the full scale invasion. No rational actor would.

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gotham_now 1y ago

No worries.

His mindset of territory, unification, and religion among a common people (the definition of which seems mostly based on what is useful at any given point) reminds me most of kings from European history.

I think he calculated he could expand or set up a buffer state, neutralize a perceived threat, and deal a blow to the US. I think, like most leaders now and in the past, he doesn’t really factor in human lives except to the extent that the domestic populace will revolt or it will weaken the states’ ability to project power in the future.

The fact that the madman portrayal was the chosen narrative by the same group with direct experience interacting with Putin is inexcusable unless they believed that he would never appear in media in the West. If they had chosen to use the ex-KGB ruthless killer that became dictator portrayal it would have made more sense, been far closer to the truth imho, and avoided all of the problems they will now have. It seems to me the choice to go with the madman frame was made to preclude negotiations.

Frankly this whole thing reminds me of WWI. An ultimately pointless conflict between arrogant powers. It was entirely avoidable, but no one with an ability to influence the outcome cared enough about the people affected to try.