About Putin's rationality

Today, in an interview with CNN, Biden called Putin a "rational actor " "who nonetheless badly misjudged his ability to invade Ukraine and suppress its people." "He thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that was where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated… "

If Putin is right, then this is, to put it mildly, a specific trait. Of course, it is difficult for us to understand not only the actions of the Kremlin old man (they simply boggle the mind, especially without taking into account the context), but also his motivation. Well, tell me, from the point of view of logic, does Russia lack territories? Have they already modernized and made comfortable the endless expanses of Siberia or the Far East? No, absolutely not.

Putin's reasoning lies solely in his imperial delusions and the way to retain power over a giant country. And the country is used to the fact that the government is only effective, and therefore legitimate, when it is feared. And not only its commoners, but the whole world.

This last aspect, the intimidation of the world, is already peculiar to Russia in the penultimate imperial format, the communist evil empire. If you look at Putin's politics from this point of view, then his long reign is a completely logical continuation of the Bolshevik idea of ​​"exporting the revolution", embodied in a number of left-wing uprisings at the beginning of the last century, in particular in Hungary (Magyarországi Szocialista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság with its Bela Kuhn) and Germany (the November Revolution and Karl Liebknecht). Therefore, after the failure of the "world conflagration" and the fall of Nazism, the Stalinists took care of the puppet regimes in Europe and the strengthening of the communist parties in the West. And during the time of the "unbeatable Leonid Ilyich" - a real "export" to the countries of Africa, Asia, as well as Latin America."

And although the "Soviet people" quietly laughed at all kinds of exotic "socialist" and "people's" republics, the regime still had reasons to believe that its rule was taking on a global dimension.

The apotheosis of such expansion is considered to be the Caribbean crisis and Khrushchev with a boot on the UN podium.  Therefore, Biden uses a historical allusion for a reason, comparing the current situation with that ancient adventure of John Kennedy, which almost ended in a real nuclear apocalypse.

That is, if Putin makes sense, then this "sense" stinks a little of mothballs. Because modern Russia is not the USSR, neither territorially, nor technologically, nor socially. It has quietly turned into a world "suburb" for a long time, losing to the West not only in terms of GDP or high technologies, but also in the "arms race".  We actually see this every day, when the Russians are literally disposing of Soviet military junk in the east, extracting not quite rusty, but significantly outdated ammunition and equipment from warehouses.

All the vaunted technological developments, with which Putin tried to scare the US and NATO, turned out to be, for the most part, well-edited cartoons with computer graphics.  And the "second army of the world" is a meeting place of untrained, poorly equipped and poorly armed thugs. Apparently, there were several elite units, but, firstly, they were few, and, secondly, they were intended rather to suppress the internal protests of civilians in Russia itself.

"Rational" Putin lived in this illusory world, feeding on the archaic ideas of the ideologues of Russian fascism and imperialism, slightly tweaked by Surkov and Dugin. And for this illusory world, Putin's "rationality" looks quite organic.

But when Putin went out "to people" and began to felt all the absurdity in Ukraine - deceived by the environment and expensive agents such as Medvedchuk, it turned out that the rationality of the modern world - in a completely different dimension. And it's not only when it comes to the USA and Europe - lately, his "allies" have distanced themselves from Putin. Just look at how this "leader" looked surrounded by SCO satellites yesterday. It does not even fit into the context of the "third world" countries, which, looking for Russia not for support, but exclusively for profit and opportunities for their own development, are waiting for a good moment to snatch their modest jackpot.

Putin's "rationality" went up in smoke on February 24. Currently, it still dominates the domestic Russian field, but it won't be long before the "music plays".

About the author. Ihor Hulyk is a journalist, Editor-in-Chief of the Espreso.West website. 

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