Thread by @RitaKonaev

If you are trying to make sense of Russian messaging, you have to do 2 things:

1. hold 2 contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time and dispense of any need for logical consistency. 1/6

2. understand that the messaging is not meant to make sense to a western crowd that is only capable of seeing things through its US or European lens. 2/6

The messaging is aimed primarily at a Russian audience — the power players who need to keep believing Putin is in charge, the broader public who need to stay afraid so they won’t mobilize against the war. 3/6

So if you’re sitting in DC or London or Berlin and you don’t understand Russia and nothing Putin says makes sense, it’s because 1- you’re thinking like an American or a European, and 2- b/c Putin isn’t talking to you. 4/6

This isn’t about getting into Putin’s brain, or the Russian soul, or any other cliche like that. But it’s nevertheless the key to understanding messages that don’t make sense from the rationality standpoint we’re used to in the US. 5/6

And to stop asking why or how, and start understanding, reacting and eventually preempting and getting ahead. 6/6