For two decades, Vladimir Putin has struck rivals as reckless, impulsive. But his behavior in ordering an invasion of Ukraine has some in the West questioning whether the Russian president has become dangerously unstable.
Western officials must confront Putin as they also wonder whether he comprehends or cares about cataclysmic consequences — or perhaps is intentionally preying on the long-held suspicions about him.
He single-handedly made landmark decisions like the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, consulting only his narrow inner circle of KGB veterans and keeping everyone else in the dark. He has long been surrounded by lieutenants reluctant to risk their careers by urging caution, let alone voicing adverse opinions.
Officials in the U.S. were alarmed by a 5,000-word essay published under Putin’s name in July that argued Russians and Ukrainians are one people and blamed any divisions on foreign plots. One Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. government’s internal thinking, said the intelligence community was concerned Putin was operating from “an emotional place” and driven by long-simmering grievances.
“He’s not had that many people having direct inputs to him,” said Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. “So we’re concerned that this isolated individual become a megalomaniac in terms of his notion of himself being the only historic figure that can rebuild old Russia or recreate the notion of the Soviet sphere.”
“The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way,” Putin said then. “This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.”
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