Eli Lake, Columnist

Putin Is Only Pretending to Be Crazy on Ukraine

Russia’s president knows there will be few consequences if he orders an invasion, but that doesn’t mean he will.

December 24, 2021 at 7:30 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Only playing a madman on TV.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

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Watching Vladimir Putin Thursday at his year-end press conference, one is tempted to ask whether the Russian president has gone mad.

Here is a man leading a country that in the last few months has amassed tens of thousands of soldiers and advanced military equipment on Ukraine’s border, now asserting that it is Ukraine which is planning an invasion of Russia. Putin claimed (without evidence) that the U.S. intends to arm Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. “They just have to understand that we have nowhere left to retreat,” Putin said.