What strikes me is that even the vast majority of the the alternative pundits out there (especially westerners), who can see quite clearly what is going on, seem to have real problems of understanding what the plans of Putin and co. „really are“. Finding themselves constantly confused and asking themselves „what does Putin really want to do?“ And they even seem to have that problem if they closely read and follow what Putin and co. say and have said in their speeches and commentaries over the years (which unfortunately not many people REALLY listen to, even the alternative people) and then compare it to what actually happened. The example of Kiev and other larger cities and how many of those people thought or still think what "Putin would/could/will do" is to "take the city" is a good example of this.
Even though Putin made it very clear from the get-go that it is not his intention to attempt regime change or take Kiev, somehow, most of those pundits are only now slowly realizing that the reality on the ground actually supports that assertion of Putin. For weeks, those same pundits speculated that "the Russians will take Kiev", in one way or the other, or other larger cities in the west. This is just one example of the quite wrong analysis those pundits have provided in the course of this operation. And, mind you, that I'm not talking about the mainstream pundits here. I'm talking about alternative pundits, who otherwise see what is going on pretty correctly.
It seems to me that this "confusion" and continued wrong assessments are based on a number of assumptions that those pundits carry with them in the background of their analysis:
- You can't trust Putin and co. since they are just another shade of spinless or bad. Just maybe slightly less or differently bad/spinless than the people running the US empire
- Because of the assumption above, those pundits can't get around to actually believe anything Putin says at face value, since they think he "is lying" or "hiding something" too, in some way, since he is more or less a ruthless autocrat at best, or a dictator at worst
- Even though Putin never really made a secret about any of the things he is planning to do over the years and that his words matched his actions over and over again, those pundits can't allow themselves to believe anything he says
- Underlying it all seems to be the actual problem or inability of conceiving of Putin as anything other than another shade of spinless or bad
- So, I would say the main problem for those people is actually the idea to allow themselves to think of Putin as a fairly normal and decent person, or, horrors of horrors, actually a very good person who cares for people in a rather altruistic way and does his best to do so.
- Why do many of those people still don't really listen to what Putin says? Because they probably have bought into the defaming and propaganda against Putin over the years (in one way or the other)
- Many of those people probably think it is impossible for a decent person, or horrors of horrors, a good person, to get to such a high position of power as Putin has, as the president of russia. They think only a spinless or bad (or very bad) person can reach such a position of power, not realizing that while that might be quite true for many such people (especially in western systems), there is also the possibility that any pretty outstandingly smart, decent and brilliant person can actually achieve the same position of power. It seems that Gonzalo Lira for example runs on that assumption when it comes to Putin, although he managed so far to be one of the best analyzers of the situation out there IMO, and it could very well be that he is slowly coming around and realizing that his assumption about Putin might not be true
- Also, many people (especially westerners) have been programmed by the inhuman and destructive wars of the empire over the years, to not be able to differentiate a real, justified and righteous war (that has good/decent intentions as the driving force) from those wars they have seen over and over again from "the empire" and thus they have a hard time to come up with other ideas "of what is going on" since they run on the underlying assumption, that "this must be a similar war", which it isn't.
So, how many of those people have allowed themselves to actually go with the rather safe assumption at this point, IMO, that Putin is actually decent and good and trying to do something good? Very few (in the west, primarily), it seems. I think it has become quite clear over the years that if Putin says and does something, it matches his intentions and words very closely. So much so, that one should in fact actually (given that very good track record) tend to trust (and REALLY listen to) what he is saying, rather than working from the other extreme assumption of "not trustworthy" (which isn't supported by facts) in analyzing what is going on.
So, it seems to be quite clear to me, that in general, Putin always tried his best to be as truthful and close to reality in what he said and did as he possibly could, given the circumstances. Which repeatedly translated into words matching deeds very closely over the years. Yes, one could say that what he did during the Covid madness clearly wasn't trustworthy, or flat out lying in some cases (which is true, I think), but if you look at it from a larger perspective (and his history and track record), he pretty much had no other choice of doing so, because he had more important plans and agendas in the backhand (the Ukraine operation, for example) that he HAD TO prioritize over "the truth" of covid. It was and probably still is a smaller banana for him, and likely, rightly so. If Putin had told the truth about Covid for example, or acted in that way, it most certainly would have made it impossible, or very difficult, for him to do what he did in Ukraine and quite possibly implement other plans he still has in the backhand.
