Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent for 15 years. He has mastered the art of psychological warfare. He showed this, among other things, in a telephone conversation with ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He threatened him with death. The list of such Putin tricks is long.
Vladimir Putin’s threat was unmistakable. When he spoke to the British Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, in early 2022, he worried about a possible rocket attack. “He threatened me and said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a rocket it would only take a minute’.”
During the conversation, Johnson tried to stop Putin from invading Ukraine. A few days later, it became apparent that the Russian president was not concerned. Putin’s spokesman now says Putin did not threaten Johnson. That is “a lie”.
But this statement is difficult to believe. Finally, at the beginning of the war, Putin also threatened Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he would attack Germany if the federal government delivered weapons to Ukraine.
And: Putin’s mind games have a long tradition. The list of his terror tricks in dealing with his counterparts.
Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin – this relationship has long been considered good. Merkel was already confronted with Putin’s psychological tricks during her first term in office. In 2007, Merkel visited Putin in the Black Sea city of Sochi. While Merkel and Putin sat together for the meeting, Putin let a black Labrador run around. The animal laid its head on Merkel’s legs.
The chancellor and her fear of dogs – she was known beforehand. Putin grinned, Merkel sat uncomfortably in her chair. She later said in an interview that Putin knew full well that she was afraid. Years earlier he had already given her a stuffed dog. And told her that he had heard that she had a problem with dogs.
Demonstrations of power are Putin’s favorite tool on the international political scene. So the sight was not surprising when Putin received the French head of state Emanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz one after the other at the beginning of 2022.
They wanted to stop him from invading Ukraine. Putin wanted to show: I won’t let you tell me anything. And so he sat his counterparts/contractors at a meter-long table as far away from himself as possible. distance as a symbol. I receive you, but you do not come close to me.
In 2008, Vladimir Putin met with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the Kremlin. Topic: the Russian attack on Georgia and a possible overthrow of President Mikheil Saakashvili. When Sarkozy warns Putin that the Western world will not accept a violent coup, the Russian reportedly replies, “I will hang Mikheil Saakashvili by the balls.”
A statement that is as unusual as it is unequivocal on the diplomatic stage. After all, the Americans hanged Saddam Hussein, according to Putin. Saakashvili remained President of Georgia until 2013. He is now chairman of the Reform Committee of Ukraine.
