The US and its allies fail to grasp that from President Vladimir Putin’s perspective, they’re already at conflict with Russia, stated Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled former head of Yukos Oil who was as soon as the nation’s richest individual.
With the US and main powers ramping up sanctions on Moscow, supplying weapons to Kyiv, and coaching Ukraine’s army, Putin views his nation as basically being at conflict with America and Europe on Ukrainian soil, Mr Khodorkovsky instructed Bloomberg.
Western arguments drawing a tough line between battle on Ukrainian land and the unfold of conflict into Nato members’ territory are a nuance meaning little to Putin, stated Mr Khodorkovsky, whose falling out with the Russian chief within the early 2000s led to him spending practically a decade in jail earlier than going into exile.
“Putin has stated from the very starting that this conflict contains them,” stated Khodorkovsky, 58.
Putin “thinks Nato is weak and that they won’t defend the Baltics” if Russia attacked these nations, all former members of the Soviet Union. If that performs out, he stated Putin believes “Nato will collapse and that implies that American” international affect will plummet.