First, thanks to Penguin Random House and Mark Galeotti for giving us this insightful perspective on Putin. Here we go.
Chapter 1
- Putin is ferociously private
- His aloofness allows everyone to construct their own personal Putin
- Alexei Navalny — the main opposition figure today
- Presidential Administration — The most powerful institution in Putin’s Russia, in effect his government above the government
- It is just Western fear that he is behind everything that goes wrong, and that each setback is part of some complex Russian strategy
- Chess is not Putin’s sort of game with each player starting the same and limited moves possibly at any moment
- He know Judo, he is a black belt
- He relies on quickly seizing any advantage he sees, rather than on a careful strategy
- This helps explain why we are so often unable to predict Putin’s moves in advance — he himself doesn’t know what he’ll do next
- He wants power and stability at home, and recognition abroad
- He realizes that the West when united is more powerful than Russia but at the same time believes that West’s weakness is that it is a constellation of often fractious democracies
- Agencies in Russia overlap and compete, formal chains of command are less important than personal relationships, favorites rise and fall, and status and power are defined more by service to the needs of the Kremlin
- Even the oligarchs, the richest in Russia, know that their wealth is subject to the power of the state
- He rarely gives direct instructions but defines broad objectives and hints as to what he might like to happen. “Do what you have to do. You know your obligations; please fulfill them”
- If you get it right you are rewarded, but if you fail the Kremlin can disown you. In many ways, the vital skill in Putin’s Russia has become predicting today what the boss will want tomorrow
Chapter 2
- Putin at KGB was mediocre
- He starts his workday in the early afternoon (late to bed, late to rise). His first and main introduction to each day comes from his spooks
- While Putin certainly controls Russia’s intelligence agencies, those that influence Putin may also be in control through the picture of the world they paint to him
Chapter 3
- Restoring USSR is not his aim
- He wants everyone to respect the assumption that Russia matters. By acting as if Russia is a great power, Putin hopes to persuade everyone else that this is true
Chapter 4
- He doesn’t run after money but power
- He understands how the promise of wealth and the fear of losing it motivates those around him, but it isn’t his drug of choice
Chapter 5
- He is a gut level patriot who believes that Russia should be considered a great power
- He is not a philosopher and doesn’t follow any particular philosophy
Chapter 6
- He is known as ‘The Body’ in his inner circle
- He is cautious and risk averse in real, even though he has a bad boy image in Western media
- He wants clarity, he wants safe choices and guaranteed successes, and when he doesn’t have them, he is best at.. hiding
- Time and again he either backs away from a tough decision, ducks out while he agonizes, or hopes, that with time, the need to make a decision will disappear
- He is not a coward either, he likes to take rational actions just
Chapter 7
- He believes it is not enough just to be in charge, it is important to be able to claim an overwhelming popular mandate
- The government maintains its grip on television and continues to explore ways to control the internet as well
- Majority of Russians want change and improvement in the track Russia is on, but they still are loyal to Putin as voting for him is not voting for a program but an expression of patriotism
- People may approve Putin but still want Putinism reformed and this fear is why he can not afford Navalny on primetime TV or has all those armed National Guard soldiers deployed across the country
Chapter 8
- The real currency in Russia at the top level is not the ruble, nor the dollar or euro, but access to and relationship with the boss
- Putin is extremely loyal to his closed ones
- He is sentimental. Once you have been brought into the family, you are in the family
- It is an adhocracy in which everyone is constantly trying to second guess and please the boss
Chapter 9
- Putin does not see everyone who is not for him as being actively against him
- He hates traitors much more than enemies
- He is a merciful autocrat, he doesn’t want to kill you — unless you force him to
Chapter 10
- We are often tempted to consider Putin to be the motive force behind the whole country, all 11 time zones and 144 million people, but he is just a figurehead for a varied collection of people and institutions
- The fact that he keeps complaining about so many of the same issues, promising solutions and losing face when they repeat themselves, suggests he may not have those hyper presidential power exerted as we imagine
- He spends his mornings swimming and working out, and gets round to paperwork in the afternoon
- If he wants to talk to anyone, he summons them to his presence
- There are many areas of policy where he does not care anymore and has left them to the people in charge
- He looks emotionless, as if nothing really touches him, as if he is hardly aware of what happens around him
- He has spent so long as an icon he is not used to anyone penetrating. This has left him isolated and trapped.
- The real question is whether he still wants the job
Chapter 11
- It is believed in the inner circle that Putin wants to find a version of him whom he can trust to protect himself and his legacy, while he stays out of direct responsibility but at the same time keeping a constitutional position to allow him to interfere in politics, a semi retirement of sorts
- There have been instances where Putin may not have submitted to an idea in the beginning but was eventually persuaded by someone close, so the question is.. how far is Putin really in charge?!
- He has relationships turned sour at times with closed ones, as closed ones are practical and driven by money, whereas he is driven by self image
- Many know the tsar can’t or won’t be there for ever, so they wait
- West needs to make sure these post Putin Russians realize that the West is not their enemy
- Even as we look to a future Russia after Putin, there could be another Putin, a bigger one, waiting right there — another reason we need to talk about Putin
PS: I read this in the time period — Apr 02, 2023 to Apr 15, 2023.