Vladimir Putin, the wolf in wolf’s clothing

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin can be many things, but in no case is he behaving erratically or disturbed. Quite the contrary, those of us who dedicate ourselves to psychological pathologies can see that the behavior of the Russian leader is linear and coherent (at least consistent with his way of understanding the role that Russia should occupy on the international stage), widely premeditated and tested, comprehensive (because it encompasses various strategies and areas that are difficult to reach for a confused mind) and accompanied by a group leadership that has achieved to date not a little support both within the country and outside its borders.

A very brief review of his biography makes us see a person determined towards his personal goals, emotionally stable (at least that is what can be deduced from his personal and professional life trajectory) and predictable, common traits in mentally healthy people.

Graduated with honors from law school, his whole life has been related to public service, either in the intelligence services (KGB), or in the service of the mayor of Leningrad or later of the Russian president at the time, Boris Yeltsin. His mandate as president of the government is the longest in the country, an aspect that also denotes perseverance and, without a doubt, know-how within national politics.

Putin has always expressed his intention to lead the country in his own way. The cases in which his vision of the state has led him to make unilateral and drastic decisions are known and controversial: for example, his reorganization of the Russian legal system caused the imprisonment of businessmen (remember the president of the oil company Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky) or the control of Russian television. He is, from the Western perspective, what we usually call an authoritarian leader.

The taking of hostages in the Dubrovka theater in Moscow or the Beslan crisis tell us about a task-oriented leader (the security and defense of the country, internal unity and cohesion) above everything and everyone.

Not to mention some unsolved deaths of dissident journalists or imprisonment of opposition politicians. Putin has always been like this and has never tried to mislead about the image he wanted to convey.

Throughout his years in office, he has cultivated a prototypical image of a Russian man with his sports hobbies, his taste for hunting and wildlife, and his appreciation for the moral values ​​of the Russian nation. And that leadership has repeatedly earned him the credit of Russian voters and oligarchs, or at least that is what the official polls of the different elections show.

Putin’s claim to regain important weight in the international space for his country is not new either. Not only did he maintain influence over the extinct countries of the former USSR but, beyond that, he tried to make new approaches to Latin America (Venezuela or Brazil) and more recently even to his former enemy, China.

Putin is not fighting an ideological battle

With the West there was also a moment of flowering of relations, especially as a result of the 9/11 attacks in New York until relatively recently. The apparent change we see in Putin today is pure pragmatism, where the cause (again Russia’s role, its security and defense) justifies the means. Gone are the old ideological battles. Putin fights for the primacy of his country.

On the other hand, we have been able to observe some recent innovations in the ways of the dignitary that could be confused with weakness or feelings of social empathy towards the West. The large increase in spending on the media, mainly through the public channel RT, indicates a growing concern to convey to international opinion the world view according to the Kremlin.

In addition, one of Putin’s most recent speeches, the speech at the end of the year 2021 before the Western media, before agencies such as “Sky News” (British), showed a victimist discourse, which sought the empathy of the Western citizen before the great threat that in his opinion loomed before Russia due to NATO. At that time, two months ago, some of us pointed out these attitudes away from the aggressive and militaristic discourse as surprising and that they gave off a certain emotional manipulation of Western public opinion.

Sadly today these assumptions have been revealed as true. The Russian army is slowly but surely advancing towards Kiev with an impressive machinery of destruction. Fortunately, Putin’s efforts to influence international opinion have had no effect, except in clearly anti-NATO minorities.

And given the ineffectiveness of the surgical and rapid attacks of the Russian armed forces in the first days of the invasion, Putin will foreseeably return to his usual strategy: clear and concrete objectives, use of all necessary force and determination until the Russian homeland achieves their ends. At last, the wolf shows his wolf skin.