"Vladimir Putin suffers from paranoia" (expert-psychiatrist D. Zagury)

If we still questioned the probable paranoia of Vladimir Putin, today it's no longer possible to deny it. Psychiatrist Daniel Zagury analyses his behaviour…

For Le Journal du Dimanche, Daniel Zagury, a psychiatrist specialising in psychopathology and forensic psychiatry, reflects on "the hateful gestures" of the Russian head of state.

As he completely disconnects from reality, Putin falls into excess and “embarks on a headlong rush that can only be halted by external action”, Zagury notes. War, inevitably, being the only response to a deep and unlimited internal hatred.

The paranoia inherent in dictatorship

Putin, like any good dictator, suffers from paranoia. For his power to endure, he must mistrust everything and everyone. “There's a functional paranoia necessary for intelligence gathering activities, from the KGB to the FSB… the paranoid reaction is one of the classic springs of mobilisation against the enemy. But this is something else: the decompensation of a mental illness,” explains Daniel Zagury.

Out of touch with reality

The psychiatrist continues: “For Putin, what's happening is utterly unthinkable, unrepresentable, inconceivable. It's the atrocious dissolution of all of Great Russia's values, conflated with his person. Ukraine, more hated than anything as a fictitious creation of the dismemberment of the USSR, is in the process of militarily defeating Russia, with the active help of the detested West.” Completely subjected to his megalomania and incapable of confronting the image of the triumphant enemy, the Russian president hastens his attacks and mocks the West. “Reality no longer affects him.”

(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: Le Journal du Dimanche - Picture: ©picture alliance / Russian Look | Kremlin Pool)