Putin the Paranoid

By Josh Nass:

So goes the mind -- and, often, the feverish imagination -- of Russian president Vladimir Putin. If I learned anything about him from my stint in 2018 as a senior strategist in the election of President Salome Zourabichvili of the Republic of Georgia -- the only country other than Ukraine that has endured a Russian invasion in recent years -- it’s that he suffers from paranoia. A long-standing, deep-seated, profoundly primitive paranoia. A paranoia that, like all paranoia -- defined in brief as irrational fear -- is untethered from reality, rooted more in delusion than fact, so much so that history may well dub him Putin the Paranoid. 

Ukrainians want nothing more than for Ukraine to belong to the Russian Federation. They dream of it. My duty to Russia dictates that I liberate Ukraine, especially from the grip of the neo-Nazis. But the West, chiefly NATO, keeps interfering, trying to diminish my influence. 

Read more at: Real Clear History