Reports are that he’s both worried about catching COVID and paranoid about letting people physically close to him for the other obvious reasons.
Mainly Covid, I think.
From the guy who wrote a book on Putin (re-quoted from the OP):
Since the pandemic started, Putin has retreated. He hasn’t travelled, even within Russia, ferried between his sumptuous palaces and the Kremlin by limousine and helicopter.
He has seen few people outside his inner circle. Anyone granted an audience had first to isolate for two weeks in a state hotel, watched over by armed guards.
Before meeting the President, he or she then had to pass through a special tunnel in a mist of ultraviolet light and disinfectant. Such is Putin’s paranoia.
And his world view has become ever smaller and darker. Putin doesn’t even have a smartphone. He is disconnected from reality.
It wasn’t always like this. Putin used to listen to professionals who would tell him the facts, his generals and economists. But most of these advisers have been side-lined.
Just wait until he starts hoarding Kleenex boxes…
This was how French President Macron conducted 5 hours of talks with Putin:
Time to go full propaganda against Putin, that he wears Kleenex boxes on his feet and is keeping all his urine in jars. Who cares that it’s not true?
I also imagine he’d want to avoid any health condition that might require hospital-level treatment. While I am sure there’d be plenty of security, there would be, um, opportunities during medical treatments to finish off the patient that would be difficult to detect, plus if he’s too sick to stay on top of what’s happening around him, all kinds of plays could be made to take away his power. I bet that keeps him up at night.
I’d seen a couple of them, but not all. Thanks.
I’m reminded of the scene in Shazam! just before the final confrontation – Sivana, hovering over the city street, starts into a standard “I will destroy you!” supervillain rant, but Shazan, hovering a few blocks away and not possessing super hearing, can’t make out a word he’s saying.
Don’t you think he looks tired?
When 22% of the population were ethnic Russians and Ukraine was a Soviet police state. It might as well be ancient history.
A polonium tipped boot?
I think that this is partially it, I also think that doing this may make NATO members think twice about the possibility of air or missile strikes against Russian forces in Ukraine. Given that it will be difficult to tell the difference between a conventional cruise missile targeting Ukraine and a nuclear one targeting Russia, and with Russia on high alert, mistaking one for another could lead to Armageddon, its probably best not to risk it.
A doctors plot as it were.
And even more so today, MPADs and anti-tank missiles
Perhaps he’s mad. Perhaps not. Perhaps ill. Perhaps not. It does look as if he’s looking for legacy for his name now, and doing something, could be some sort of soviet restoration, be it just Ukraine, further with easy pickings such as Moldova, or even further with the likes of Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia, all ex-USSR states.
The reality nowadays is that nuclear weapons stop nothing. They’re suicide for all, and from that, useless.
What might also be happening here is the other constant of wars: technological demonstrations of new weapons for sale and “what we have”. The vacuum bomb. Talk of hypersonic missiles. Perhaps the Russians (New-SSR perhaps?) are confident they have technological advances which aren’t matched, or at least for sale to their allies.
The west went drones. Drone tech even at a small level is quite advanced for even normal people, and any new war might be a completely different prospect now. However, those are remote operated and could be jammed or fried from the ground. A real war of real advances against technological advanced countries might be the nightmare vision for the future. No-one in 1910 riding on horses with sabres swinging could have envisioned the First World War, never mind the Second. It just takes one of those countries to be confident of a sufficiently advanced technology to start it.
Or perhaps he’s just mad. Or ill. Here’s hoping.
If he’s mad or ill, he may not give much of a shit about the suicide option, and may just want to take as many with him as possible.
At the rate he’s going, his legacy is that he’ll be the 21st century version of Hitler.
This is what Putin fears most:
French president Macron, who has met with Putin on numerous occasions, says in their last meeting he seemed paranoid and out of touch: