It is difficult to determine whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has undergone psychological changes. We never know to what extent they reflect his mental state or rather are just part of his wider propaganda. However, he could have made the very risky decision to invade Ukraine because he began to fear political competition and lose power, political psychologist Jan erek reports to Aktuálně.cz.
Attacks in Ukraine: political psychologist Jan Sherek on the behavior of Vladimir Putin Video: Kristýna Pružinová, Jakub Zuzánek
According to Erek, the recent actions of the Russian president may also be influenced by the fact that he and his closest associates have long been isolated in the Kremlin. “The group in which Putin makes decisions is relatively homogeneous, small and isolated,” said Sherek of Masaryk University’s Faculty of Social Sciences.
“And if we have a group of people who share the same worldview who respect each other and tend to maintain harmony, where criticism is punished and where there is a usually strong leader who the other person wants to thank and say what he or she wants to hear, so it just so happens. such groups make fatally wrong decisions,” added Erek, who has been in political psychology for a long time.
According to him, it can also be considered that the decision to attack Ukraine was not well thought out by Russia’s top leaders. As such, Putin can downplay the various scenarios for how the attack could fail. “Such behavior is aptly described as a consequence of group thinking,” says Erek. “So it’s not just about isolating Putin as a person, but maybe isolating the whole group in which he decides,” he added.
Watch the video at the beginning of the article, in which Sherek also points out how the behavior of the Russian president has changed in the last twenty years or what his surprising decisions were.
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