"No madman and no martyr": Kremlin expert explains Putin's way of thinking in the Ukraine war

Created: 2022-11-25 05:04

By: Felix Durach

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

© VLADIMIR SMIRNOV/AFP

Kremlin expert Andrei Piontkowski said in an interview that Russia had already lost the war.

For the future he sees a loss of power in the Kremlin.

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine in recent months.

The Kremlin expert Andrei Piontkowski sees the autocrat's threats as primarily political calculations and does not believe in a nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war.

Ukraine-News: Kremlin expert on Putin - "not a martyr and not a maniac"

In an interview with a Ukrainian television station, the Kremlin expert gave an insight into the Russian power center and explained the Russian president's way of thinking.

"Putin is not a martyr and not a maniac," said the 82-year-old.

"But he's pretending to be a madman." What Piontkowski meant by that: Putin's goal is to be seen by NATO as unpredictable.

Kremlin chief relies on deterrence to break NATO's support for Ukraine.

Born in Moscow, Piontkowski has made a name for himself in Russia as a scholar and anti-government commentator.

In 2016, he left the country after one of his articles was labeled "extremist" by the Russian government.

Piontkowski cites the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city of Cherson as an example of Putin's behavior.

The metropolis in the south of the country is considered a strategically important hub in the ongoing war and was held by Russian troops for months.

As the Ukrainian army advanced on Kherson, Putin repeatedly claimed that Kyiv was planning to use a “dirty bomb” against Russia.

Western observers initially feared that the Russian president would use the allegations to justify his own use of nuclear weapons.

But in the end things turned out differently.

The Russian troops voluntarily withdrew from Kherson, leaving the city to the Ukrainian army without a fight.

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Kremlin expert: Russia has already lost the war - "severe internal conflicts" are imminent

Piontkowski went one step further in his analysis: Russia has already lost the war and the Kremlin is aware of it.

"There is no longer a person in Russia who does not understand that the war is lost," said the expert.

Putin and the other leaders in the Kremlin are no longer concerned with military successes, but simply with maintaining power.

In the current situation, the political leadership no longer has any time "to think about the destruction of Ukraine." Their goal is merely "to save their own skin - their power and also their lives".

So far, however, the Kremlin and President Putin have received support from the Russian Orthodox Church.

In an interview with Merkur.de, an expert explains how the war is religiously justified.

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Putin's power has already fallen as a result of the failures in the Ukraine war.

Piontkowski even sees a "loss of the state's monopoly on the use of force." The Kremlin expert is certain: Russia is "preparing for the most serious internal conflicts".