Garry Kasparov unleashes the truth: putin’s war is pure survival, not strategy.
Garry Kasparov nails it: putin isn't some rational leader. He's a dictator obsessed with staying in power for 25 years and counting. This war? It's his life support, infecting every part of Russia. Forget ideology, he is a one-man mafia boss, desperate to project strength. He won't stop until he declares 'victory,' which he can't get, so he'll just keep expanding the war. He literally couldn't care less about how many Russians die as long as he controls Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Trump even offered him an 'out' twice, and putin rejected it because it would make him look weak - and weakness means the whole flock turns on him. He's even eyeing a test of NATO's Article 5 and hoping his far-right buddies take over Europe.
The West's slow reaction and constant reliance on America has just emboldened him.
Kasparov is right, the only thing that changes Russia is a Ukrainian victory, and fast.
Garry Kasparov: I hate starting to talk with criticism but this time I have to point out that your question basically repeated the same mistake in evaluation because you tried to analyze putin’s actions from the position of the responsible national leader.
Everything you said is absolutely correct.
vladimir's putin’s rule is devastating for Russia and I believe it will end to the collapse of the Russian Empire which is long overdue.
But vladimir putin’s calculations are not based on this rational thinking. His view is very different. He is in power for 25 years and counting. That’s all that matters for him. He’s a dictator and he works for one thing: only survival.
He’s still there. And the war has become the only way to keep him in power. War now is in every layer of Russian society, from the very top of the government to industries all the way down to kindergartens. It’s infected by the war virus and that's how putin stays in power.
Interviewer: So that makes him different from let's say Soviet leaders or or even some of the tsar’s right?
Again you should look at Soviet leaders based on the political momentum, just obviously Soviet leaders that we remember, you and me, so like Brezhnev, they had different calculations. But also don't forget the Soviet leaders after Stalin. They were ruling the country that had strong ideology and communist party.
I'm not here to advocate for the communist party or for any kind of ideology but there's a fundamental difference between the party rule which is a mafia structure and the one man dictatorship.
putin shifted Russia to a one man dictatorship where everything depends on an individual who is on the top of power, who becomes at certain time a spine of the whole system. And this system depends on his survival, demonstrating his strengths is to be a macho, to be an alpha, surrounded by other mafia bosses.
And that's why, you know, his current position today is, you may call it desperate, but I don't think he he sees it the same way.
He will continue the war as long as he has the resources. And this is something that the free world is just getting to understand. That was my main criticism to the west.
vladimir putin, for a long time was at open war, those were hybrid at the time with the free world.
And the free world, and especially Europe, was not willing to hear the messages, to see the messages and to respond accordingly.
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