Putin Lives by a Code Trump Doesn’t Understand

5 comments

1. Andrew Ryvkin: “Donald Trump still doesn’t seem to have learned a thing about the Russian dictator he calls a friend. He’s tried all kinds of contradictory gambits in pursuit of peace in Ukraine: welcoming Vladimir Putin in Alaska, helping Kyiv blow up Russian oil refineries, offering Russia land it hasn’t been able to acquire militarily. None seems to have had much effect. The Kremlin is holding the line, and Trump can’t get through. On Thursday, Putin said that parts of the U.S. peace plan were unacceptable and that Russia would take Ukrainian land by force.

   “One reason may be that Trump and Putin are fundamentally incompatible personalities. Trump sees everything as a deal, and for Putin, any deal is a revelation of weakness. Trump is a creature of the Manhattan-real-estate world; Putin grew up amid the rubble of postwar Leningrad. Those Soviet courtyards formed him. In them, he internalized the rules of *ponyatiya*—an unwritten code, roughly translated as ‘the concepts,’ or ‘the understandings,’ that originated in Stalin’s Gulags and still governs much of life in Russia, regardless of who’s in power.

   “The *ponyatiya* of Putin’s youth generally meant never betraying your gang and always standing up for your friends. Putin still lives by these rules. He’s kept the same circle of friends since the 1980s—a good number of them are now billionaires—and no matter how badly they handle a situation, they are hardly ever punished. They’re in their 70s now, but they still play hockey together in what they call the ‘Night Hockey League,’ or the NHL (they had custom jerseys made). *Ponyatiya* also meant never letting an insult go unanswered. Consider the defectors—not to mention the oligarchs, journalists, and dissidents who have displeased Putin—who have ended up dead.

   “Putin approaches foreign policy according to the same code. Hierarchy is absolute. The strong must be respected, and the weak must obey. The fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—a man whose comedy performances Putin once enjoyed—is now leading a country that’s stopping Russia from reclaiming its imperial glory creates cognitive dissonance. A comedian is supposed to be feeble; a smaller nation without a nuclear arsenal is supposed to submit, and its people are supposed to stay silent.

   “By the same logic, Putin should regard an American president as equally powerful. Yet Trump has consistently presented himself as the weaker party.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/UNgTHRHN](https://theatln.tc/UNgTHRHN)

2. The main differences are patience vs impatience. Trump has extreme impatience with anything. Putin can wait decades.

3. I think great world powers are all scared of powerful weapons ending in the wrong hands, I think they really want peace and even if they have an agenda of mocking EU, both US and Russia signaled (it’s not so difficult to ready between the lines) that they somewhat trust EU

   I agree in part with the article, it’s not easy for a diplomats to understand how mafia thinks, but there are rules, you have to be smart to understand even things that are not said

   Every liberation movement has to show power in a way: “what Is needed Is a realization that Power without love Is reckless and abusive and love without Power Is sentimental and anemic etc” M.J.K.

   It’s up to our diplomats to decide what to do, let’s hope for the best outcome

4. People compare Trump to a mafioso because of his authoritarian tendencies. He’s not. He’s a kleptocrat. He takes advantage of his position to personally benefit himself while pretending to be a statesman.

   When people like that confront others with equal power, they’re not sure what to do because they have no leverage. He wants to end the war for largely optical reasons and doesn’t care about the exact outcome for either party. So if Putin gets all of Ukraine or if he gets none of it, that’s fine as long as he can say the war is ended and he helped do it.

   Putin of course has a lot more at stake so he’ll not negotiate anything until he gets what he wants. In the meantime, he will continue using the military to grab as much territory as possible to make the facts on the ground the way he wants prior to any negotiated settlement.

   Until Trump understands this, there will be be no peace deal. Everyone else involved, including Zelenskyy and the EU, understands this.

5. This isn’t a Trump Putin problem. It’s an America Russia problem. Leaders are products of their systems. The two countries have incompatible ideas of power, concessions, and time horizons, so every reset fails regardless of who’s in office.

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