The casual speculation about Vladimir Putin’s mental state has become more serious.
Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated last night, without explicitly saying so, that he’s getting briefings or viewing materials that speak to this issue.
“I wish I could share more,but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin,” he tweeted, warning that things have changed and it would be a “mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago.”
I wish I could share more,but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin
He has always been a killer,but his problem now is different & significant
It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 26, 2022
Reading between those lines is not difficult.
Michael McFaul, Obama’s ambassador to Russia, observed also that the Russian leader has “changed”:
I’ve watched and listened to Putin for over thirty years. He has changed. He sounds completely disconnected from reality. He sounds unhinged.
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 26, 2022
The subject of Putin’s mind has been of interest to Pentagon analysts and psychologists for a long time.
Beyond the posturing debates over whether Putin does or does not have a “soul,” the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) undertook a study in 2008 that examined his mental state. USA Today obtained that study (and one from 2011) and published the findings in 2015. Controversially, it speculated that the Russian leader has an “autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions.” Researchers pointed to Asperger’s syndrome, though they couldn’t prove that theory without having done a brain scan. One psychiatry professor cited in the study later walked back the specific claim of Asperger’s.
The armchair analysis was largely based on videos of Putin and attracted scrutiny at the time. It must be taken with salt grains. But those findings still wouldn’t account for the more recent changes in behavior Western officials say they’ve noticed, against the backdrop of his disastrous war in Ukraine.
Indeed, it is hard for anyone to see the videos of Putin’s pronouncements this week or the images of him taking social-distancing to absurd degrees or the sheer consequences of his decision-making without thinking that this man with command of a million-strong military force and a nuclear arsenal is not well.
Putin was Machiavellian in his prime. How does that cunning contort at the edge of 70? Per the Guardian, on this point:
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a catastrophic new European war, combined with the sheer weirdness of his recent public appearances, has raised questions in western capitals about the mental stability of the leader of a country with 6,000 nuclear warheads. . . .
Following Putin’s speech on Monday, an Elysée official made an unusually bold assessment that the speech was “paranoid”. Bernard Guetta, a member of the European parliament for Macron’s grouping, told France Inter radio on Thursday morning, after military invasion began: “I think this man is losing his sense of reality, to say it politely.” Asked by the interviewer if that meant he thought Putin had gone mad, he said “yes”.
Guetta is not alone. Milos Zeman, the Czech president and long one of [Vladimir] Putin’s staunchest supporters, denounced Putin [as] a “madman” after the invasion.
“All our Russia-watchers, watching his press conferences, think that he’s descending even more into a despotic mindset,” another European diplomat said.
People grow old. They acquire ailments. Their perception of reality changes. The prospect of mortality affects different people differently. Most people don’t hold complete power over a vast nation while hearing only affirmative feedback from those around them. This is a dangerous way to age.