A Simulated President's Daily Brief on Putin and Ukraine (Just Security)

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Brianna Rosen
@rosen_br
What is Putin's calculus on Ukraine? Has he gone mad?

I offer some thoughts in the form of a mock President's Daily Brief for @just_security.

#RussiaUkraine

justsecurity.org
A Simulated President’s Daily Brief on Putin and Ukraine
Insight into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset may help the West anticipate and respond to his next moves in the crisis.
7:00 AM · Mar 2, 2022

https://www.justsecurity.org/80400/a-simulated-presidents-daily-brief-on-putin-and-ukraine/

[Editor’s note: Every morning, the president receives daily briefing reports from the intelligence community presenting information and analysis on policy developments around the world. In this simulated President’s Daily Brief memo, Just Security’s Senior Fellow Brianna Rosen presents a fictional account of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset, motivations, and calculus on Ukraine.]

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, insight into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset may help you anticipate and respond to his next moves in the crisis. While Putin deliberately seeks to portray an aura of mystery and enigma, our information and analysis sheds light on his motivations and calculus.

The following factors should be taken into consideration as you formulate policy responses to Russian aggression:

First, Putin continues to perceive that he embodies and personifies the Russian state, where he exerts paternalistic control over individuals and civil society. As a result, Putin is concerned with appearing strong and in control at all times, and he values order (poryadok) and strength (sila) above democratic freedoms or norms.

* Putin views individual rights as a tool of western interference and a threat to Russia’s national security. In his mind, rights and norms hold instrumental value only to the extent that they can be used to deflect western criticism of Russian actions.

* Notwithstanding the limited freedoms that remain for Russian civil society after decades of increasingly repressive rule, the new social contract between the state and the people is the same as the old social contract that existed during Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union.

* Recent protests in Russia concerning the invasion of Ukraine, at their present scale, are unlikely to significantly impact elite decision-making. Putin nevertheless has refrained from calling military operations in Ukraine a “war,” and instructed his communications regulator to take down Russian media references describing it as such, suggesting he may be trying to control the narrative and prevent a broader public backlash.

*snip*