At a private fundraising event in New York in October 2022, President Biden issued an ominous warning about the possibility of nuclear “Armageddon.”
According to Bob Woodward’s new book War (Simon & Schuster, on sale now), Biden told the crowd, “There’s a man I know very well. His name is Vladimir Putin.” ” he said. “I spent a lot of time with him. He’s not kidding when he talks about tactical weapons and the potential use of nuclear weapons.”
AP
Biden said his biggest challenge is understanding the Russian leader’s mindset. Mr. Biden, stuck in a war with Ukraine that was becoming increasingly unwinnable, asked, “What is President Putin’s strategy?”
Vladimir Putin, who has been President of Russia since 2012, has long kept politicians around the world guessing. Is he the greatest threat to modern world peace or an unfairly maligned Russian patriot? CIA Director William Burns told Woodward that Putin is “widely regarded among world leaders as a skilled manipulator.” And nowhere is this more evident than in his relationship with the President of the United States.
After meeting with Putin in 2011, Biden said, “I think you don’t have a soul,” to which Putin responded with a smile and the chilling line, “We understand each other.” However, my opinion remains consistent. “President Putin is evil,” Biden told his advisers in the Oval Office, Woodward said. “We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has spoken out words of praise for the Russian dictator. He called Putin a “very intelligent man” and said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “genius” move.
“President Putin respects me,” Trump told Woodward. “And I respect President Putin.”
Woodward writes that Putin’s most effective tactic against rival politicians is a “carefully orchestrated charm attack.” He was able to exploit and outmaneuver the president by giving him (or at least appearing to give him) what he wanted.
For Biden, it is a fantasy of foreign relations. In numerous face-to-face meetings with the current president, Putin “sounded all the right tones that Biden wanted to hear,” Woodward wrote. “He was smooth, relaxed, articulate and incredibly confident.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price told Woodward that Putin gave him the impression that “perhaps the Russians are trying to do what we’re trying to do.” Build stable and predictable relationships. ”
Author Bob Woodward Audi Canada Getty Images
Putin took a different approach to Trump: flattery.
Mr. Trump told Mr. Woodward: “He said very nice things about me.” “He said Trump is great and Trump is going to be the new leader. And some of these clowns said, ‘You should repudiate Putin.’ I said, ‘Why should I reject him? ”
Putin apparently called Trump “excellent” during a 2015 press conference in Moscow, but the exact meaning may have been lost in translation. “The actual Russian language was ‘colorful,'” Burns clarified to Woodward. “This isn’t quite the same kind of compliment.”
Whatever Putin’s real meaning, the effect was exactly what he expected. “Putin took advantage of Trump’s ego,” Woodward writes. And when President Trump was asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election, he said, “President Putin was rewarded with one of the most extraordinary statements by an American president.”
Mr. Biden insisted he understood Mr. Putin’s grand ambitions. Ron Sachs / Pool via CNP / SplashNews.com
“He just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Putin. “I don’t see why that would be the case.”
President Putin has been similarly sinister toward Biden. During the Biden-Putin talks in summer 2021, Putin dodged questions about Ukraine (an unprecedented 110,000 Russian troops were stationed on the border) and instead focused on Biden’s disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. I guessed.
“Why did you leave Afghanistan?” Putin asked Biden “to try to tip him off balance,” Woodward wrote.
This was a strategic move, an attempt to shine a spotlight on what Putin saw as weaknesses. Woodward also suggested, at least to Putin, that “Biden wouldn’t know what to do if Putin invaded[Ukraine].”
A scene from the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Many say the move emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. Stringer/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Putin has attempted to publicly humiliate other world leaders, including parading a large black Labrador in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a fear of dogs, in 2007. He has been similarly calculating with other world leaders, such as by trying to trick them into telling Putin exactly what he was doing (he was notorious for). what he wanted to hear. In 2022, during a telephone conversation with Boris Johnson in an attempt to dissuade Putin from starting a war with Ukraine, Putin admitted to the British Prime Minister that “Ukraine has no intention of joining NATO in the near future.” I let it happen.
Johnson later admitted that Putin had “trapped us”. Johnson could not say that publicly, “because it would be contrary to NATO’s open door policy,” Woodward writes. However, the confession “made it appear that President Putin was vetoing Russia’s decision to apply for NATO membership.”
President Putin has many weaknesses. U.S. intelligence analysts said his main personality traits were “fragility” and “extreme lack of self-confidence.” During a phone call with Biden in 2021, Putin blurted out, “I’m angry that you called me a murderer,” an interview with ABC TV in which Biden agreed with the Russian president’s assessment. That’s what I mentioned.
President Putin famously surprised German Chancellor Angela Merkel by bringing his dog to a meeting with her. It is well known that Chancellor Merkel hates dogs. Reuters
But the biggest factor in Putin’s ruthlessness, especially in Ukraine, was the coronavirus pandemic. “Putin has been changed by intense and prolonged isolation,” Woodward writes, citing U.S. intelligence reports. “He surrounded himself with a small group of trusted people with similar nationalist views. He was physically and figuratively isolated from Russian society for nearly three years.”
He spent much of his lonely time reading Russian history and studying ancient maps. “During the COVID-19 quarantine, traveling to Ukraine felt like a fever dream,” Woodward wrote. “But the fever didn’t go down.”
Mr. Biden believed he understood Mr. Putin’s thinking. Biden’s big ambition, as he once told aides, is “to be a big player on a big stage.” But as Putin moved toward war, Biden began to have doubts. “Did I make a mistake?” Biden asked a group of Russia experts about Putin’s intentions during a White House meeting. Did the Russian president want to be a respected world leader or a warmonger? “What am I missing?”
While Biden claims to understand Putin, Donald Trump has said he knows the Russian leader best. AFP (via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Trump continues to claim that he understands Putin better than anyone else. “I know him very well. It went very, very well,” Trump said in an interview on conservative radio. “I knew he always wanted Ukraine. We used to talk at length about it.”
Dan Coats, President Trump’s former director of national intelligence, told Woodward: “How[Trump]interacts with Mr. Putin and what he says to Mr. Putin remains a mystery to me.” spoke. . . He reached out and never said anything bad about Putin, he said positive things about Putin. For me, that’s scary. ”
Last July, Woodward asked Trump campaign aide Jason Miller about Trump’s alleged secret calls with Putin since leaving the White House in 2021. Mr. Miller denied the reports, but insisted that Mr. Trump had enough influence over Mr. Putin that he could easily block the presidential election. Ukraine war if he becomes president again.
Donald Trump has said he always knew President Putin wanted to invade Ukraine in 2022, but he has yet to conquer it thanks to fierce resistance led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Getty Images
“He knows the pressure points for both President Putin and President Zelensky to get it done,” Miller told Woodward. “After November 5th, I think President Trump will be able to resolve the issue, or close to resolution, by the time he takes the oath of office.”
It’s a bold promise, but CIA Director William Burns doesn’t necessarily agree. “Putin has a plan,” Burns told Woodward. “They played Trump the same way they played Trump when he was president.”
