Putin the Emp...Impostor
What happened to Vladimir Putin when he did such a self-destructive thing as mobilization? Perhaps, he knew he was a fraud all alone.
*Impostor Syndrome is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.
When the Russian President of 22 years started a war against Ukraine, even U.S. intelligence assessed that the Russians would take over Kyiv in 3-7 days. One had to know Russia too well from within to foresee quite the opposite: an embarrassing defeat of the Russian Army. Because if there was one thing Vladimir Putin succeeded at as Russia's leader, it was corruption and kleptocracy, to which the Defense Ministry became one of the most fruitful sources. The fruitful results are now on display for the whole world to see. As a knowledgable friend explained to me: "You see, Russian military top officials thought that for the 60-70 percent of the budget left after they've taken their corrupted share (30-40 percent is a standard payout on military contracts in Russia) things were being bought/produced/repaired for the Army. But in fact, the stealing went further on lower levels as lower-level officials and contractors knew perfectly well the top ones won't say a thing - being dirty themselves. Thus, Putin would be lucky if a quarter of the budget ever reached out the Army".
On top of that, Putin was badly misinformed by his no less corrupt security forces - namely, FSB, SVR, and GRU, about Ukrainian readiness to become an enslaved (or, as the Russians call it, "liberated") part of Russia. Instead, billions of rubles were supposed to be spent on preparing guerrilla forces inside Ukraine who would ensure Russian soldiers paraded their way into Kyiv.
But is it possible that six months later, Putin is still so severely misinformed that he announces mobilization in Russia? If there is one thing that could reverse the Russian people's attitude towards the war, it is an obligation to fight - not from their couches or shiny cafes in Moscow, but on the frontlines. No, most Russians never cared about Russia's genocide against Ukrainians or the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Bucha and Mariupol. No, most Russians didn't really care about tens of thousands of soldiers that had died in that war. Despite some Western journalists and experts anticipating (from their Western, a.k.a. sane and humane point of view) that thousands of zinc coffins coming back home would wake up Russian people, it didn't happen. Some parents were even happy to get new cars as a payout for their fallen sons.
The Potemkin village that Putin has built out of Russia is not only the rockets that won't fly and the tanks that won't fire. It is also modern Russian patriotism. Don't get me wrong: Russians, in their vast majority, are racists, chauvinists, and imperialists. But that doesn't stretch into their willingness to die for their views. Russian people's passiveness goes both ways: they are unwilling to fight for their civil rights, Vladimir Putin, or his wars. The annexation of Crimea was an ideal manifestation of what Russians wanted and how they were willing to get it.
So what happened to Putin that he did such an utterly self-destructive thing as mobilization? I suggest impostor syndrome. Indeed, Putin is a fraud; deep down, he knows it himself, too. He was never supposed to be Russia's President, and he would have never become one had the corrupt Yeltsin family not chosen him as Boris Yeltsin's successor. Putin had 2 percent approval ratings when he was announced the next Russian President. He was chosen because he was weak and controllable, as the Yeltsin clan thought.
Nor was Putin ever supposed to become the head of the FSB, as he never made a career at the KGB. Instead, the only true calling that Putin ever had was to be the head of the Saint-Petersburg Mayor's foreign relations department, where he oversaw the Cali cocaine smuggle through the city port. That and being a mafia middleman - an ideal match for Putin's talents.
Yet, against all odds, the small man becomes the head of Russia. And despite getting a unique opportunity to build a prosperous country on high oil prices, Putin blows it. His deadly spiral probably started with the war against Georgia in 2008 that the infamous Munich speech had preceded.
A doctor once told me that people with drug or alcohol addiction resent themselves so much that they subconsciously try to destroy themselves through drugs or alcohol. Perhaps, Putin could never believe he deserved to be Russia's President, so his subconsciousness wanted to prove him right in that inner assertion. The internalized fear of being exposed have pushed him to prove he is not a fraud at a conscious level - thus the authoritarianism, wars, and blood. At the same time, his subconsciousness has made him do things that would end him and strip him of that fear - thus the self-destructing behavior.
Well, maybe if the world exposed Putin as a fraud first, we would not have to endure bloody destructions along the way.
Putin the Emp...Impostor
"Putin and his colleagues were reduced mainly to collecting press clippings, thus contributing to the mountains of useless information produced by the KGB", Russian-American Masha Gessen wrote in her 2012 biography of Putin titled "The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin." His work was also downplayed by former Stasi spy chief Markus Wolf and Putin's former KGB colleague Vladimir Usoltsev. Journalist Catherine Belton wrote in 2020 that this downplaying was actually cover for Putin's involvement in KGB coordination and support for the terrorist Red Army Faction, whose members frequently hid in East Germany with the support of the Stasi. Dresden was preferred as a "marginal" town with only a small presence of Western intelligence services.
А, что значит разоблачил? Это как? Что должен был сделать Мир?