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Notes -
I don't find this kind of psychological analysis to be that convincing. It's compelling to imagine Putin ranting at his generals in some palace and to pull out all sorts of diagnoses - he's a megalomaniac, he's a psychopath, he's delusional, he's paranoid, etc. But these kinds of assertions are made without evidence, and are constructed to support desired conclusions. The claim that Putin is insane or Hitleresque is made to justify war with Russia, and what Americans think of as the good kind of war - total war that doesn't stop until the entire country and government is destroyed. It is made to rule out the possibility of negotiation or normalizing relations.
In any case, Putin's interior psychology is not really that important. Russia is in a very bad place right now, but they really have no choice but to continue to believe that victory is possible. People can believe anything if they have to!
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