Vladimir Putin’s mind is a bizarre place: a mixture of the paranoia of his KGB spy background, ornate and indulged theories of Russian imperial might and a tendency to resort to folksy metaphors to explain how Russia should be governed – essentially, on a long authoritarian lease by him.
As the CIA director John Ratcliffe made an unusual trip to Moscow to meet the heads of Russia’s foreign and domestic intelligence services this week, the aim seems to have been (at least) twofold: to assess at firsthand how Russia’s secret state is thinking about the war in Ukraine, and assess the danger of escalation in “grey zone” hostilities (that is, hostile actions too ambiguous, minor or deniable to cross the threshold into war) between Moscow and Nato.
There is inevitably also always a third purpose in such encounters, which is to fill out the psychological profile and assessment of the Kremlin leader’s mental state by talking to people who deal closely with him.
Putin gave a clue to his thinking and its oddities this week in conversation with trainee teachers talking about Arctic studies and he cited a familiar internet trope of killer whales killing polar bears: “Orcas hunt these bears devouring them as if they were nothing – they descend in packs and tear them apart.”
