When former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Vladimir Putin, she said that it was so cold that it could become a reptile. The world has recently been able to verify that public manifestation of coldness in the distance that he interposed with Emmanuel Macronand later with Olaf Scholz, using a four meter table. At that time, a more than evident sign of his unwillingness to ease tensions regarding the conflict of Ukraine. The considered “new tsar” of Russia is not a madman or a capricious person, but an extremely calculating, rational and cold person, as revealed by his non-verbal language and the absence of visible gestures.
The one in Ukraine is only the last war conflict of the Russian president. This warlord, who received in 2011 the Confucius Peace Prize and went Nobel Peace Prize candidate in 2021, it started the wars in Crimea, Georgia and Ukraine, helped in the one in Syria and inherited the second in Chechnya.
A few hours after beginning his latest military operation, the former Spanish Foreign Minister, Javier Solanasaid in Cadena Ser that “in his dreams he is thinking that he will not die without Ukraine being part of Russia”. Despite the authoritarian drift of his government, this messianic leader enjoys great popularity among a people that rewards leaders who decisively defend the identity and interests of the country.
Vladimir Putin He is a hermetic man almost ice. Publicly, he is obsessed with showing the most virile side of him. We have seen the politician who has governed Russia the longest since the fall of the USSR playing hockey, diving or riding a horse with his torso uncovered. He also practices hunting, fishing, he is a black belt in judo and, like a good Russian, he is a chess player. His security obsession It leads him to have a guard made up of 9,000 troops, according to the BBC.
In the face of this alpha male exhibitionism, his face is unusually expressionless, as if frozen. The expert in speech and non-verbal behavior, Jose Luis Martin Ovejeroaffirmed in Cadena Cope that it is “truly exceptional to notice emotions” on his face and, in any case, on some occasion he hints “anger and contempt”. In his opinion, “he behaves differently from the rest of human beings; he lacks the most usual emotions. He seems to feel no guilt, fear, or sadness.”
Putin’s non-verbal language shows great self-control and secrecy; he keeps his body tense all the time, as if ready for action. Another of the traits that it transmits is security. Martín Ovejero explains that he “is so convinced and sure of what he is doing that it is as if we were seeing a machine in human form”. His communication differs from that of other megalomaniac and narcissistic leaders that he has given history: “his way of communicating is different, although what he may have in his head is the same.” In relation to contemporary leaders “he cannot be compared to any; he is light years from the next.”
Reclaiming Russian Pride
The courage with which a tiny proportion of Russian society express in the streets their opposition in the Ukraine war is just a mirage because Putin has seen to it that there is no parliamentary opposition, independent media or organized civil society. And yet, for the population, Vladimir Putin is synonymous with the recovery of the pride of being Russian and the improvement of well-being.
To understand the man who has become the most remarkable symbol of modern Russia After a process of idealization of his figure designed by Soviet propaganda specialists, it is necessary to know his biography.
grandson of a Stalin’s cook, his grandfather transmitted to him the idolatry for the dictator. He was born in Saint Petersburg in the bosom of a humble family, where he lived in the same room as his parents until he was 25 years old. After graduating in Law, in 1975 he enrolled in the KGB and became a colonel. In 1991 he resigned from his position in Russian intelligence and developed a political stage in the city council of Saint Petersburg until he moved to Moscow.
Unexpectedly, a weakened, unpopular and sick Boris Yeltsin resigned as president of Russia in the 1999 year-end speech and called elections for three months later. As interim president he appointed his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who, unlike Yeltsin’s other prime ministers, showed determination from the start despite his calm appearance.
Putin’s first challenge as interim president was the second chechen war, cataloged as Putin’s personal war. Thanks to the popularity of the conflict, he won the 2000 elections. As official president, he begins to unify the country’s laws and approves the Land and Tax laws. But perhaps the most striking thing was that he stripped influence from the oligarchsespecially those who ran Russian televisions, and built the so-called “vertical power”, that is, the restoration of the authority of the State under the ideological concepts of “sovereign democracy” and “dictatorship of the law”. In reality, it was about the control of civil society and the media, the reduction of regional autonomy and the strengthening of presidential authority.
After a period of four years between 2008 and 2012 in which he relinquishes the presidency to position himself again as Prime Minister of Russia, Putin has won every presidential electionincreasing popular support in each of them.
In all this time, Putin the democratic and liberal system has diminished (same-sex marriage or adoption by persons transsexuals are prohibited), but he has managed to pull the population out of the hole it was in when he came to power in 2000, which has given him great popular support. In addition, he has modernized obsolete military equipment and weapons to deal with US power.
It looks more like something out of a movie. James Bond. Putin responds to the stereotype of a KGB spy: he speaks three languages, is an expert in self-defense, has strong mental power for self-control and an unwavering personality. In the words of the psychologist Christian Druso “He is someone who is very difficult to convince or take to his own ground to try to resolve a conflict.”
