We're talking about a guy who killed rats for sports as a kid. Killing is probably his cup of tea, but let's leave that aside for a minute. Putin came into puberty late, and apparently that's one of the reasons he took up judo. Nobody wants to be bullied, nothing strange about that, but still today he seems stuck in some sort of teenage mentality where it's "bully or be bullied." Keep this in mind as many of his political choices seem to stem from his inferiority complex.
This spy-gone-president has seriously increased corruption in Russia, and Russia is now one of the 22% most corrupt countries in the World. That should be no big surprise as he himself arrested oligarchs, seized their assets and consequently became one of the richest men on the planet. This type of "hidden" corruption have ripple effects - and Putin has performed similar stunts many times in the past - but when combined with total openness about corruption it's devastating for society as a whole. And with "total openness" I mainly think about things like him extending the presidential term from four to six years, using a puppet placeholder president, building himself a humongous palace, the Party of crooks and thieves which serves no ideology but to support the administration, things like that. These things allow him to keep and extend his power; inferiority complex anyone?
While Putin's "hidden corruption" has heinous effects on its victims - such as bombings, murder (Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, former deputy prime minister Nemtsov and countless others), starvation and imprisonment - it's probably not as corrosive to the society at large. Interestingly Putin is not only into strengthening his power as part of the most superior inferiority complex you've ever heard of, but his pleonexia stretches into petty theft as well, such as when he stole the glass kalashnikov from the Guggenheim museum, or robbery if you will, such as when he (backed by three KGB agents) put Robert Kraft's super bowl ring in his pocket, stated "I can kill someone with this" and walked away. Now that's what I call a president!
Putin is a conservative Christian when it suits him. For instance he on the one hand blurted out that same-sex marriage equals Satan-worshipping; on the other hand he divorced his wife since they "hardly see each other." Like any good Christian he's had plenty of extramarital hangouts and is also reported to be a wife-beater of rank.
So how can this man possibly be popular? One of the reasons is that he's been able to make economy turn back to the haydays of communism. This should be contrasted with the fact that in the years spiraling down between 1991 and 1999, Russia was led by a drunken dimwit who handed out an an enormous country's enormous resources to oligarchs. Nonetheless he has done a good job in the one instance of GDP per capita:
On the other hand, if he hadn't, he probably wouldn't have been able to remain in power.
Another reason for his popularity is of course the massive PR campaign which, at least to the rest of us, has a disposition towards the farcical. Putin has been a diving archaeologist, firefighting pilot, nature conservationist in a motorized hang glider and tiger attack preventor to mention a few in the laughing stock. How this can boost popularity is beyond most of us, but I guess that when you control pretty much all of the media in the country it's doable.
Vladimir Putin's undeniable popularity is also visible in his vodka brand, his foods and his comic book.
So now this mentally ill murderer who won the popularity contest among the brainwashed and hence instigated conflict in Ukraine is now turning his eyes westwards. Sweden for one, have felt its share of aeroplanes and submarines, and slowly Sweden is shifting its stance back to higher defence budgets and a compulsory military service.
2024 would be Putin's last year as president (unless he gets another puppy), but somehow it feels unrealistic not to think that he would go out with a bang: one of the richest, mightiest, self-proclaimed bullies of the world with a huge inferiority complex just giving up everything he fought for. Not too likely, right?
