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What Moves Putin?
Whatever potential Vladimir Putin's leadership once held for Russia has been exhausted. And because there is no mechanism for peaceful change in the Kremlin, what remains is the grim momentum of continuing decay.
Irena Grudzińska Gross: It was unusual for US President Joe Biden to hold a press conference about the killing of the leader of ISIS, who had nowhere near the importance of his predecessor, much less of Osama bin Laden. Was this an implicit reply to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s perception that the United States, humbled abroad and divided at home, is a weakened power?
Adam Michnik: Putin certainly is convinced that the West is today weaker than ever. But his behavior results also from his anti-American paranoia. Putin thinks that anything that Americans do is directed against Russia. I do not know if what is happening in Syria is related to what is happening in Donetsk, but in Putin’s mind such a relationship definitely exists. This is typical of a certain kind of political leader. We in Poland also have such a person. Whenever Jarosław Kaczyński [the leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party] is thwarted, he blames a conspiracy among hostile forces. And the hostile forces are whoever does not applaud him loudly.