The Sun
VLADIMIR Putin is said to have an unshakeable fear of being killed like Libyan tyrant Colonel Gaddafi – which has poisoned his relationship with the West.
US President Joe Biden will tomorrow meet Putin for the first time both as presidents in a summit which is predicted to be tense and a return to the uneasy status quo between the US and Russia.
Biden is expected to confront Putin as relations between the two superpowers have hit rocket bottom – with the veteran Democrat branding his opposite number a “killer”.
Election meddling, cyber attacks and military tensions over Ukraine are all expected to be on the table as the two butt heads and squabble for status on the world stage.
Despite great overtures to warm up relations between the West and Russia at the end of the Cold War, things have frozen over once again in the last decade.
And one of the turning points is said to be Putin’s reaction to the Western intervention in Libya back in 2011.
The Russian leader is believed to be haunted by the scenes in which the tyrannical Gaddafi was brutalised before being executed by a mob.
And all of it was captured on video, which further disturbed Vlad who reportedly considered it a warning shot to his own regime.
He is said to have “obsessively” watched the video, according to The Atlantic, and seen it as a wake up call.
Putin is claimed to have decided he would stand up against the West, or he would be next to be torn apart in a revolution.
The Russian leader has now been in power for the better part of two decades – and has consolidated his iron grip by changing election laws and crushing any opposition.
Putin enemy Yuri Felshtinsky previously told The Sun Online recent unrest sparked by the the jailing of regime critic Alexi Navalny will only deepen the 68-year-old’s fears of ending up like Gaddafi.
Felshtinsky agreed that Putin is terrified that if he were ever to loosen the grip, then a similar bitter end awaits him.
“Correct – this he knows,” Felshtinsky told The Sun Online.
“He’s bright enough to know that under normal rules, his system of government cannot exist. He’s not an idealist.
“He knows there’s no way he can survive unless he continues to oppress.
“The lesson that Putin will have learnt after the recent events is that he should control more and that he should repress more. And that’s what we will see.”
Read the full story in The Sun
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