"He's a maniac who lives in his own reality"
Ivan Preobrazhensky is a dissident Russian political analyst. In 2014, he emigrated from Russia to the Czech Republic, the day after Vladimir Putin signed the decree on the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
According to the political analyst, the European view of Putin's will was wrong:
"Many Western diplomats and politicians were of the opinion (before February 24) that Putin would not attack Ukraine, and that Putin didn't have sufficient resources to occupy and hold Ukraine. This belief didn't prevent the Russian army from unleashing a war, one of the goals of which is the destruction of the entire country."
Ivan Preobrazhensky takes us back to Putin's psychological dimension:
"You have to understand that you are dealing with a maniac, with his own very clearly constructed schizophrenic logic, but a maniac who lives in a completely different reality than yours. But it's difficult for most people to accept this."
(MH with AmBar/Source: RBC Ukraine/Photo: DPA/Russian Look/Kremlin Pool)