Putin ‘disconnected from reality’, ‘misjudged’ in Ukraine: Tony Blair

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday that Putin was “detached from reality” amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Blair’s remarks came during Interview on CNN. Host Fareed Zakaria provided footage of Putin shaking hands with Blair during a trip to London in April 2000, marking the Russian president’s first visit to the West after his election.

“He seemed rational, incremental, calculating and logical. Now he seems emotional and angry. How do you feel about the path?” Zakaria asked.

“The first Putin I met was facing the West, he was eager to have a good relationship with the West…Then I think he found the challenges of reform and change in Russia too great and decided to consolidate his power in a more authoritarian way and then become a Russian nationalist.”

He added that Putin’s “second incarnation” was “cold and calculating” but still “completely rational on his terms”.

Blair went on to say, “The worry I think everyone has is that he is now so completely divorced from reality and surrounded by people who won’t tell him the truth. That is why this gross miscalculation, I mean his evil aside, the misjudgment strategically and in every possible way has been colossal.” “.

Blair added that anyone who knows Ukraine “knows that there was never any question about Ukrainians agreeing to submit to Russia in this way.”

NEWSWEEK I contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.

During an interview on Friday, former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said that Putin did it “I’m already starting to realize He also said he believed the Russian president had been “misled” by his advisers about the state of the Russian military, and how quickly to invade Ukraine.

In an interview on Sunday, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine Larisa Galadza said Putin is “not rational” and as a result, Nobody can stop Russian invasion.

“He didn’t believe in history. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t rational. So, I don’t know how to prevent that,” Galadza told CBC.

“I don’t think anyone can stop Putin from doing what Putin did,” she added.

The US ambassador to Ukraine, Christina Kevin, said Sunday that she believes Putin does Unleashing “empty threats” against Finland and Sweden amid its losses in the war as these two countries move towards NATO membership. On Sunday, Sweden’s ruling party put aside threats from Putin and agreed to try To join the security alliance, he reversed centuries of non-alignment.