The reason so many Kremlinologists failed to anticipate a large-scale invasion of Ukraine was because they thought they knew him. Military analysts, working with fewer or no prior psychological assumptions, were far more prescient.
The Putin we have come to know over two decades at the helm of the Russian state was supposed to be calculating and cautious, someone not averse to taking a chance but only when the odds of winning were straightforward. Nothing indicated a dormant tendency to gamble his whole future in a roll of the dice.
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