"Puffy-Looking and Weird:" Putin's Physical and Mental Decline Is "Obvious"

Some say he is being misled by his subordinates. 

But given his control over Russia's people and information sources, the more likely explanation is that he, like his ally in the White House, simply refuses to admit that anything is amiss, believing that the Big Lie, if repeated often and loudly enough, will overawe his enemies. Until it doesn't. JL

Robert Fox reports in The Indepedent:

Putin now appears to be imitating his frenemy Donald Trump in his increasingly volatile unpredictability. This makes him more dangerous. Victory in Ukraine seems remote – and the lack of progress is stinging Putin into new actions and provocation. (But) Putin’s claims and boasts seem wide of the mark. He said the war would be won, and Russia wanted chunks of four oblasts in Ukraine that his army had failed to dominate completely by force of arms. This war is unsustainable for another year and probably Putin knows it: another cause for concern for his state of mind and political judgment. As the Russian leadership becomes psychologically bunkered, the risk rises  Is Putin “is getting weirder? Yes.”

We have seen a rather different face of Vladimir Putin this week for his showpiece St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s answer to the regular gathering of world economic bigwigs at Davos each February. Hoarse of voice, puffy of cheek, coughing and spluttering through a heavy cold, the Russian president claimed his country was winning on the battlefield in Ukraine, with business and the economy booming at home and abroad.

It didn’t help him that as the delegates began arriving on Wednesday Ukraine’s drones hit an oil terminal just 10 miles off, and bombed the naval dockyard at Kronstadt. Plumes of black smoke hung in the sky for several hours. In the news briefings before his curtain-raising speech on Friday, Putin’s claims and boasts seemed wide of the mark, quite wild in fact. He said the war could and would be won, and Russia wanted chunks of four oblasts in Ukraine that his army had failed to dominate completely by force of arms.

He was prepared to talk peace, however, on the kinds of terms that Donald Trump and the USA might propose. He referred back to talks with Donald Trump in Alaska last August – terms the Kremlin information machine reduced to mincemeat within hours of the event. 

Putin now appears to be imitating his familiar and frenemy Donald Trump in his increasing – and increasingly volatile – unpredictability. This makes him more dangerous. I asked Dr Fiona Hill, the Russian adviser to three US presidents, including Trump in his first term, if Putin “is getting weirder?” “Yes,” she replied, “but don’t count him out.”

Donald Trump sent a delegation to the St Petersburg jamboree this week, led by Rodney Mims Cook Jr, the overseer of the extravagant Trump Ballroom project in the East Wing of the White House. The real estate broker diplomats Jared Kuchner and Steve Witkoff have not shown themselves yet. But their favoured interlocutor Kirill Dmitriev has made a gesture for peace in proposing building a 55-mile tunnel from the Chukotka peninsula in Russia to Alaska, at a cost of around $65bn (£49bn) – which, I suppose, is cheap as chips compared to the bill for HS2. Apparently the Elon Musk “Boring Company”, which drills tunnels, could cut the budget by $8bn. 

Outright victory in Ukraine still seems remote – and the lack of progress is stinging Putin into new areas of action and provocation. Russians at home are fretting as they are threatened by Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile strikes. Sporadic fuel rationing and unreliable phone and internet connections are fuelling vociferous criticism from bloggers and even the mainstream press.

Putin is now framing Europe as the main agent behind Zelensky – Russian state media blames European military and industry for providing the fleets of drones keeping the Ukrainian war machine going. This deliberately ignores that Ukraine is now the premier world power for the manufacture and deployment of drones, building millions a year, and is now the instructor in drone warfare to the armies of Western Europe, including the UK.

Innovation with drones, electronic jammers, and robotic ground vehicles – UGVs – means Ukrainian forces have been gaining ground in a well-camouflaged summer offensive. The drones have been attacking resupply trucks and ammunition and fuel dumps. More to the point, they have been cutting food and water supplies to thousands of Russian troops. Crimea, occupied since 2014, is running dry. 

The focus of the ground battle is Russia’s attempt to break through a belt of fortresses in northern Donetsk – with the key engagement in and around Kostyantynivka. Without the fortresses, the Kremlin won’t be able to claim victory or a deal with Kyiv, and Zelensky has said he’s not prepared to give away an inch of territory – at any price.

This heightens the risk of Russia staging “false flag” incidents to justify spreading the war, to Belarus, and beyond into the Baltic states and eastern Balkans, which would mean attacking Nato partners. There are fears of staged “accidents” at the nuclear power plants – and both Chernobyl, which suffered the biggest civil nuclear accident of modern times in 1986 – and Zaporizhzhia – have seen military action lately. 

This past week Putin said he was confident Russia could continue the war to 2027 and beyond because of its huge population reserves – 140 million to Ukraine’s 40 million or just under. This is cold comfort because some 70 per cent of the Russian entire 140 million are within range of Ukraine’s missiles and drones, a fact now being proved on an almost daily basis.

Russia still has strengths and advantages over Ukraine – especially in advanced electronic warfare and military communications. Putin is still in charge, but his circle of counsellors and ideologues is narrowing and ageing. And they have failed – they have produced no formula for winning the war, or achieving a truce or armistice. Even the Trump card is devalued for them this week after a dozen GOP lawmakers in the Congress defying Trump to approve a major bill to deliver billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine while imposing steep sanctions on Russia.

As the Russian leadership becomes psychologically bunkered, the risk arises of them resorting to old tricks of the exotic arsenal – chemical and biological weapons, which they have used in the past – grows higher. Peter Frankopan, the professor of global history at Oxford, has suggested that a collapse of the Putin regime would mean anarchy across vast areas of Eastern Russia – which in his words is “where the arsenals of the really bad stuff are – and who knows what would happen” if they were on the loose. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium in London in 2006, and at the attempt on the Skripals with Novichok in Salisbury in 2018, would be just a foretaste.

Biggest pause for thought should be the horrendous human toll in Ukraine, civilian as much as military. Conservative estimates put Russian casualties since February 2022 at around 1.4 million, including half a million dead. Ukraine has suffered around 600,000 dead and injured – a guesstimate as accurate casualty numbers are a state secret. This means roughly one in 25 of all Russian males have been killed and injured in the four years and three months, and one in 16 Ukrainians. 

This is unsustainable for another year for both sides – and probably Vladimir Putin knows it: another cause for concern for his state of mind and political judgment.

This, as much as anything I suspect, has triggered the warning from the head of UK armed forces, Sir Rich Knighton to the BBC that we are now in greater danger than at any other point in his lifetime. Sir Rich is not pleading merely for more money for the security and armed services across the piece. His argument is more basic. We need to be ready before the new crisis hits, because if it does hit and we’re not ready, it’ll be too late – for all of us.