# Has Putin mentally deteriorated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [February 27, 2022, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179 "2022-02-27T05:01:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/101 "2022-03-02T06:46:10Z")
Here’s an article stating the contrary: > [@](#): > > Western intelligence agencies have good visibility into Putin right now and are closely watching his moves for any significant behavioral changes, several current and former officials said. Four U.S. officials said there is no intelligence saying he is mentally unstable, but they said he has displayed a different pattern of behavior from in the past. > > The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is frustrated and directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign and the worldwide condemnation of his actions, one former and two current U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence said. > > That is unusual, they say, because Putin, a former intelligence officer, usually keeps his emotions in check. > > “He is no longer the same cold-blooded, clear-eyed dictator that he was in 2008,” former CIA Director John Brennan said. > > A Western diplomat said Putin appeared to be increasingly insulated and misinformed. > **[Frustrated Putin may order escalation of violence in Ukraine, U.S. officials say](https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/frustrated-putin-may-order-escalation-violence-ukraine-us-officials-sa-rcna18026)** > > The U.S. has solid intelligence that Putin is directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign, officials said. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/102 "2022-03-02T07:54:47Z")
I’m not sure why that’s the ‘contrary’. It’s saying the same thing that everyone who’s dealt with Putin is saying. Not that he has a clinical condition… yet… but that he’s changed and gone mentally downhill. From the same article: > Condoleezza Rice, who met a number of times with Putin as secretary of state in the administration of President George W. Bush, said Sunday on Fox News that she, too, sees a different Putin. > > He was always a “calculating and cold” former KGB operative, she said, but today, “he seems erratic.” > > “There is an ever-deepening, delusional rendering of history,” she said. “It was always a kind of victimology of what had happened to them, but now it goes back to blaming Lenin for the foundation of Kyiv in Ukraine. So he’s descending into something that I personally haven’t seen before.” ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/103 "2022-03-02T08:15:48Z")
‘Old man in a hurry’: he recognises that he hasn’t much time to cement a historical legacy (maybe he’s physically ill and knows it?), hence the over-ambition and consequent increased frustration, because at some level he realises the west isn’t ever going to take him at his own estimation. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/104 "2022-03-02T09:50:01Z")
I note he is now older than Yeltsin was when he retired. Yeltsin was a few months short of turning 69. Putin turned 69 in October. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/105 "2022-03-02T10:45:23Z")
Interesting article from September last year. > **[Putin's worsening health set to be a determining factor in Russia's policy...](https://lansinginstitute.org/2021/09/29/putins-worsening-health-set-to-be-a-determining-factor-in-russias-policy-over-the-next-four-years/)** > > Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent move to go on self-isolation, allegedly due to certain people from his entourage having contracted COVID-19, may be tl;dr Slow cognitive reactions. Convulsive leg movements. Swinging one arm and not the other while walking. Neurological symptoms have become more pronounced over time. Parkinson’s? Spinal injury or spinal cancer? Oncological drugs? Painkillers? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/106 "2022-03-02T10:57:10Z")
And that’s in _Russian_ years. A Russian 69 is at least an American 85. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/107 "2022-03-02T11:08:18Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Slow cognitive reactions. Convulsive leg movements. Swinging one arm and not the other while walking. Neurological symptoms have become more pronounced over time. Parkinson’s? Spinal injury or spinal cancer? Oncological drugs? Painkillers? Novichok exposure? ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/108 "2022-03-02T12:23:00Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Yeltsin was a few months short of turning 69. Putin turned 69 in October. Plug. Glug. Glug. Glug. I don’t think you should be comparing Yeltsin to Putin. He was the wests drunken useful idiot, the same way Boris Johnson (and I still reckon Trump, who lies about everything, so why not alcoholism?) is Putins. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/109 "2022-03-02T13:11:03Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > and I still reckon Trump, who lies about everything, so why not alcoholism Oddly I do believe him on this one, just because of his ego and the way he treated his brother. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/110 "2022-03-02T13:32:52Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Oddly I do believe him on this one, just because of his ego and the way he treated his brother. I wouldn’t believe the man if he told me it was raining, he seems to enjoy lying, and even getting caught lying. How he treated his brother, well, I regard that as how he’d treat anybody he regarded as a “mark” and a mark he was, given the eldest son status… I understand why people aren’t willing to accept that idea, and I don’t want to take the thread off topic on it, I’ll just state what I think and leave it at that. I don’t think he’s always been an alcoholic. I don’t think he’s always been teetotal either, but can imagine he was for a time, very likely a long time. Alcoholism is a serious pit to fall into when you have money. However, the long rambling speeches in recent years screamed “he’s drunk” to me, and see above for my opinion on whether he ever tells the truth… ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/111 "2022-03-02T13:36:37Z")
Or it could be… getting older. He is 75. Biden make a gaffe today, mixing up Ukraine and Iran. You think he is a drunk? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/112 "2022-03-02T13:46:59Z")
That wasn’t Biden mixing up Ukraine and Iran. That’s him having trouble with his speaking style, which isn’t helped by his having to control his stutter. I’m tired of people jumping on most verbal gaffes of politicians, no matter who they are. The only exception I make is Trump, because of his tendency to double down and insist that whatever he said or wrote was exactly what he intended and we’re all idiots for not understanding him. What made “covfefe” so terrible, for instance, wasn’t that he wrote it–lots of us have had issues with text entry on a phone and have accidentally sent something nonsensical–but that he himself kept it alive as a thing. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/113 "2022-03-02T13:56:57Z")
🤨 Of all things, you chose “covfefe”? Where he was obviously being tongue in cheek? ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/114 "2022-03-02T13:59:30Z")
When people tell you who they are, listen to them. For _decades_, Putin has been saying that NATO is a hostile alliance aimed directly at Russia. He’s been saying that NATO expansion east of Germany is in direct and deliberate violation of a solemn agreement made during the talks on German unification in 1990, and is an overtly hostile military move intended to threaten and weaken Russia. He’s been saying that NATO expansion into Ukraine is a true red-line for Russia, an existential threat, that Russia cannot allow. And then, after Putin repeatedly meddled in Ukrainian politics, launched cyber-attacks, staged limited military interventions and a limited invasion in the Donbas region, and outright seized Crimea, after all of that, when Ukraine’s drift towards the EU and NATO only accelerated, Putin stages a full-scale invasion. And people are shocked - shocked! - that after decades of very loudly and publicly saying that Ukraine’s status is an existential matter of Russian national sovereignty and security, Putin acts like it’s an existential matter Russian national sovereignty and security. This all seemed so self-evidently ridiculous to outside observers that many of them of them convinced themselves that Putin was just posturing, that he couldn’t really mean it, so when they’re finally hit in the face with Putin walking the the walk instead of just talking the talk, many of them decide that it wasn’t that they were oblivious to what Putin had been saying all along, it’s that Putin must have mentally deteriorated. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/115 "2022-03-02T14:09:26Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Or it could be… getting older. He is 75. Biden make a gaffe today, mixing up Ukraine and Iran. You think he is a drunk? Yes, and no. Biden is getting old, but he’s not that much older than Trump. But I’m pretty sure Biden didn’t have a long rant about cancer windmills and being able to create a covid vaccine personally from a sharpie and some disinfectant… That’s the drunken rant. Not getting a few words wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/116 "2022-03-02T14:34:18Z")
Lots of people say all kinds of stuff. It’s doing that matters. “I’m going to kill him” has been uttered in anger a million times that never went any further. The fact that Putin does what he says, breaking every rule and implementing untold suffering, fits quite nicely with most people’s idea of mental deterioration. Even if it happened decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/117 "2022-03-02T15:07:41Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > Lots of people say all kinds of stuff. It’s doing that matters. “I’m going to kill him” has been uttered in anger a million times that never went any further. The fact that Putin does what he says, breaking every rule and implementing untold suffering, fits quite nicely with most people’s idea of mental deterioration. Even if it happened decades ago. From the OP: > [@GreenWyvern](#): > > **Putin has always been rational** , and his judgment has always been good in terms of his own cold values. > > He’s always been an autocrat, probably a sociopath, totally ruthless, and like some kind of glorified Mafia don. But **he’s never been irrational… until now.** > > Even in the case Georgia, of Crimea, and the breakaway areas of Ukraine, he pushed the boundaries, and then stopped. His judgment of just how far he could go was correct, and he got away with it. > > **But invading Ukraine is** a huge mistake, against all reason, and **something he wouldn’t have done even a couple of years ago.** > > **Has he gone mentally downhill recently?** > > **[emphasis added]** @Toxylon, if you want to argue that Putin has _always_ been mentally unbalanced, that’s another argument. The OP posited a _recent_ mental deterioration, a dramatic shift within the last couple of years. I personally just don’t see that. At all. Putin is behaving _exactly_ the same way he’s _always_ behaved. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/118 "2022-03-02T15:16:04Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > @Toxylon, if you want to argue that Putin has _always_ been mentally unbalanced, that’s another argument. The OP posited a _recent_ mental deterioration, a dramatic shift within the last couple of years. I personally just don’t see that. At all. Putin is behaving _exactly_ the same way he’s _always_ behaved. Yeah, I mainly agree with your points here and in previous posts. I don’t think any of this should come as a great surprise, nor does it show mental instability, at least not recent mental instability. I think Putin made some bad calculations, but even there I think most observers could say that the west responses, especially in Europe, have been more than a bit surprising. Putin obviously made a calculation that the west would roll over and let this pass, but that wasn’t because Putin was or is crazy or has mentally deteriorated, it’s because that’s been the pattern in the past. But his current adventure is really just an extension of both previous actions and previous statements he’s been making all along. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/119 "2022-03-02T15:28:37Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > Putin is behaving _exactly_ the same way he’s _always_ behaved. The invasion of Ukraine is entirely consistent with past behavior. The hiding away at the end of long tables - not so much. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179/120 "2022-03-02T15:30:56Z")
There’s another angle that’s just occurred to me (and it’s disturbing). For all his grand scale rhetoric about security architectures and the like, he could also be bugged by the events in Lithuania in 1991: > **[January Events (Lithuania)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Events_(Lithuania))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Lithuanian victory >  Lithuania Not Gorbachev’s finest hour, from anyone’s p.o v., but from Putin’s there must be an element of “This time, we’ll do it properly”. Which is not comforting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-putin-mentally-deteriorated/960179.md?page=7)