Thread by @khodorkovsky_en

You probably think Putin hates the West, right? Well… perhaps. But at the same time, he can’t live without it.

Why else would he roll out the red carpet for an American TV host? 🧵1/12

As I have said many times before, everything Putin does has one goal – to keep him in power for as long as possible. That’s why he assassinates journalists, that’s why he invaded Ukraine – and it’s also why he let Tucker Carlson interview him 2/12

Because as much as Putin and his propagandists might paint the West as public enemy number one in Russia, the truth is, he craves western attention and approval. Why? Because it gives him legitimacy at home 3/12

Russians might be taught to despise the West, but at the same time, a lot of them still view Europe and the US as cultural role models. They watch western films, they buy western goods, they follow western sports teams 4/12

So, when a prominent westerner says something complimentary about Putin, this holds a lot of weight among the Russian public, and it contributes to Putin’s approval ratings. And Putin knows it 5/12

But when the war in Ukraine started, most of the West turned its back on Russia. Putin is no longer invited to meet with its leaders, nor do they visit him, and those western politicians who do sympathise with him tend to keep it quiet nowadays 6/12

The Kremlin cannot stand this. It needs western approval. This is why, for example, Russian propagandists have taken to writing pro-Putin comments under articles on western news sites under assumed European and American names, then reprinting them as ‘western opinions’ 7/12

This is where Tucker Carlson comes in. He’s been complimentary of Putin for years, even as the dictator became persona non grata among the broader western public. So when he visited Moscow, he got the superstar treatment 8/12

His visit has received more media coverage than any visiting world leader or celebrity in years. His every move was portrayed as a matter of national importance – all because he satisfies the regime’s need for approval from the West 9/12

So, how should the West respond to this? It needs to take advantage of this weakness of Putin’s. The best way to do this, is by refusing to acknowledge him as the legal president after the March ‘election’ 10/12

There are plenty of perfectly valid legal grounds to reject his inevitable re-election (war crimes spring instantly to mind), and though he might act like it doesn’t matter what the West thinks of him, it actually does matter – both to him, and to the Russian public 11/12

Read in full: 12/12telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…