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Comment by anothernewdude | Hacker News Reader

Putin is surrounded by people who can't say no. I'm not sure how in touch with reality he his.

Is he, though? Or is that a meme? I know it’s easy to see Putin’s entourage as a cartoon villain lair where saying no to anything will get you shot and replaced, but Putin, evil as he is, is really good at what he does and I don’t think it’s possible to be that good without being surrounded by some amount of other really intelligent people.

In general I don’t think it follows that he could still be in power if he weren’t in touch with reality.

Also, he speaks German very well (he even talked German during parts of the 3 hr meeting with Germany’s chancellor last week), which means he has easy access to different viewpoints if he’d choose to read German media. Now I have no idea if he does or if this really is an argument against him being out of touch with reality. But it could be.

I have been following the show for a while, here is an interview with retired Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov in Russian. You can read about him in wikipedia [2]. Based on this assessment: i think that Putin might get a very similar professional assessment from his general staff. I mean similar in substance, but certainly not in form.

(my grandparent comment was: 'I don't think that he will invade; Putin is a lot of things, but he knows some history and he is not a suicidal idiot. I think it's all for show')

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXOcuzQjzdo

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Ivashov

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