Ich bin aus Russland geflohen, nachdem ich terrorisiert wurde – ich weiß, wie Putin fallen konnte

Whatever is happening, [Vladimir Putin](https://inews.co.uk/topic/vladimir-putin?srsltid=AfmBOoqrZBUC0d1KBv_pPg18YshWm-XDsuYJSWYD5GCGye7mS7I_zUhA&ico=in-line_link) chooses war. No matter what rewards lie on the table – sanctions relief, an end to Russia’s isolation, lucrative economic co-operation with the United States, amnesty for his military’s war crimes etc – he walks away from any deal unless it amounts to Ukraine’s capitulation.

Now, he is reportedly directly challenging [Donald Trump](https://inews.co.uk/topic/donald-trump?ico=in-line_link) in his [Iran military campaign](https://inews.co.uk/news/new-supreme-leader-named-by-iran-as-oil-prices-surge-4282413?ico=in-line_link) by providing Tehran with intelligence on the US military movements. Putin would be willing to trade that assistance — and even his unique position as Iran’s ally — if, in return, Trump helped him subjugate Ukraine. And a spike in oil prices [gives him fresh room to manoeuvre](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trumps-gift-to-putin-is-a-catastrophe-for-all-of-us-4285248?ico=in-line_link) amid mounting budget problems.

There are reasons why Putin won’t compromise. First, he is not interested in territory — he wants all of Ukraine. Second, he believes he’s better positioned for a long fight: [Ukraine](https://inews.co.uk/topic/ukraine?ico=in-line_link) feels the pain of his war of attrition and terror every day; he does not. Third, for Putin, it is no longer even about Ukraine. It is about him. A fair agreement will make him look incompetent and unfit — and his war a colossal blunder, which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Putin can afford to look barbaric and brutal. But he cannot afford to look weak: the integrity of his rule [rests on an aura of greatness](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/putin-harnessed-russia-humiliation-west-failed-paid-price-4253414?ico=in-line_link) and infallibility.

Yet, there is another, deeper reason why Putin won’t stop. As an independent political journalist who reported on Putin’s rule since the beginning, I remember vividly how his return to the Kremlin was announced 15 years ago, after former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s three-and-a-half-year interregnum. Neither of them offered any explanation for what was immediately dubbed “castling”: Medvedev would step down as president and take Putin’s job as prime minister. “Your applause gives me the right not to explain” — Medvedev told the bureaucratic elite as he nominated Putin for the presidency at the ruling party Congress in September 2011.

\“The return of Vladimir Putin”, I wrote two days later, “has a distinct taste of inevitable catastrophe. Its timing and form may be difficult to predict precisely, but it now seems impossible to avert.”

The problem was not that after his return, Putin was planning to annex Crimea, and then shatter the world order and start the [deadliest war in Europe](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/ukraine-war-entering-endgame-4243723?srsltid=AfmBOoqgKHa0pubYC_VDrnajDPFzf-2PeifwJF03XoJw83rjh_ShMHDP&ico=in-line_link) since the Second World War. Back then, the problem was that he had no plan at all. It was the concentration of limitless – and now effectively permanent – power in one pair of hands, combined with the absence of an agenda, that posed the greatest risk.

Unlike so many frenetic dictators, who mobilise nations behind obsessive ideas, Putin never had either charisma to energise the crowd or an agenda. A career bureaucrat with a KGB background, he never had a plan. All he cared about was power. Power and control became his programme – but he never quite knew what to do with it. A glance at his interviews in 2011-2012 suffices to see his uncertainty about the next step. Should he execute or pardon dissidents? Should he reconnect with the West – or pick a fight with it? He didn’t know.

Back then, Putin could not imagine that two years later, his pressure on former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to abandon the EU Association Agreement would trigger Euromaidan in Kyiv – an anti-Putin uprising to which Putin would lose, once again, after his defeat in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. That loss, in turn, would ultimately push him toward a [full-scale invasion of Ukraine](https://inews.co.uk/topic/russia-ukraine-war?ico=in-line_link) in 2022.

So how can putin fail?