Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent thought process for justifying his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is ‘deeply concerning’ to the United States government, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Sunday.
She refused to weigh in on Putin’s ‘mental stability’ directly, even as lawmakers and foreign policy experts who have dealt with the authoritarian ruler in the past suggest deteriorating health could be behind his ambitions to violently overthrow Kyiv’s democratically elected government.
Hours earlier, the Biden administration ramped up its assistance for Ukraine with an additional $54 billion in humanitarian aid dedicated toward food, emergency health supplies, high thermal blankets and other measures to help civilians affected by the fighting.
‘This additional assistance will support our partners to provide critically needed health care, safe drinking water, sanitation, hygiene supplies, and protection for vulnerable children,’ a statement from the US Agency for International Development read. It comes after the State Department authorized $350 million for Ukraine’s immediate defense on Saturday.
Psaki spoke with ABC’s This Week after Putin indicated in a televised address that he was preparing his military for the possibility of nuclear war in light of ‘aggressive statements’ from NATO leaders and ‘unfriendly economic actions.’
Ukrainian soldiers inspect a damaged military vehicle after fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27
A woman clears the rubble in a badly damaged residential building in Mironova Street in Donetsk after a shelling attack on February 27
Nearly 200 Ukrainian citizens have died during the conflict as of Saturday, and more than 1,000 are injured
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to comment on rumors that Vladimir Putin’s mental state may have changed
The alarming warning came shortly before Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office confirmed officials from Moscow and Kyiv would meet for peace talks at his country’s border with neighboring Belarus.
Asked about Putin’s nuclear defensive measure, Psaki said: ‘This is really a pattern that we’ve seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression.’
She said the US and NATO countries’ main ‘mistake’ up until now has been anticipating Putin’s actions ‘through the prism of global norms.’
It follows a flurry of speculation over Putin’s mental state from current US lawmakers as well as those who have worked with Putin in the past. A video of him clashing with his Intelligence chief went viral last week and sparked questions over whether the Russian leader was even losing the support of his cronies with his sudden and aggressive invasion.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, set rumors ablaze with a cryptic Twitter post on Friday: ‘I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin. He has always been a killer, but his problem now is different and significant.’
Psaki was asked Sunday, ‘Is it the belief of the United States government right now that Vladimir Putin is mentally unbalanced in some way?’
It comes after Putin apparently responded to Russia being booted off the SWIFT global banking system by indicating his military should be ready for nuclear war
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov attend a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia February 27. It appears that there’s uneasiness over the unprovoked attack on Ukraine even among Putin’s cronies
‘Well, without getting into his mental imbalance or stability, what I will say, George, is anyone who watched the speech he gave last week, whether it’s Senator Rubio or all of us sitting in the White House, what we heard from President Putin at that time was somebody who was not only justifying the invasion of a sovereign country but clearly had ambitions beyond that,’ Psaki replied.
‘And one of the mistakes we probably all make is looking at this through the prism of global norms and what the global community believe is behavior that people should operate through as leaders in the world. That is not how he sees the world’
She suggested his extreme isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic may have played a hand in his thought process today.
‘So I’m not going to make an assessment of his mental stability. But I will tell you, certainly the rhetoric, the actions, the justification that he is making for his actions are certainly deeply concerning to us,’ the Biden official said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner expressed similar concerns on Sunday.
‘What we do know is that over the last couple of years, Putin has been more and more isolated. He’s not been in the Kremlin for the most part,’ Warner told NBC’s Meet The Press when asked about Putin’s state.
An armored personnel carrier burns and damaged light utility vehicles stand abandoned after fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27
A damaged boiler house in Politboitsov Street in Donetsk after a shelling attack. Tension began to escalate in Donbass on 17 February, with the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic reporting the most intense shellfire in months. Early on 24 February, Russia’s President Putin announced his decision to launch a special military operation after considering requests from the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic
An apartment building damaged by shellfire in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv. Russian forces launched two different attacks over the weekend in a bid to take the city, both of which have been resisted by Ukrainian defenders
‘And when you are an authoritarian leader and you have less and less inputs, and you’re only hearing from people that want to say to the boss, “Hey, you’re right,”I think that leads to miscalculation. And I think that is what has happened in the case of his invasion in Ukraine.’
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said on the same television program that Putin was growing ‘increasingly unhinged.’
‘To get kicked out of SWIFT, as it happened to Russia yesterday, and then to have the president of Russia get in front of his generals and say we need to prepare for nuclear war — that doesn’t sound very rational to me,’ McFaul, who oversaw the US Embassy in Moscow for two years under Barack Obama, said.
He noted that Putin had been in power for more than 20 years.
‘I’m nervous that Mr. Putin has been believing his propaganda for decades…even when I was ambassador eight years ago, he was very dismissive of everybody around him, he’s out at his compound, doesn’t come into town very much and under COVID he’s been even more isolated,’ he said.
The former diplomat also cast doubt on whether Putin could hold any kind of meaningful negotiations with Zelensky’s government — who he has disparaged as drug addicts and Nazis.
Rubio, the top GOP senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent the internet into a frenzy when he tweeted about Putin being ‘off’
‘He’s increasingly unhinged in the way he talks about the regime — just yesterday talking about Zelensky being a neo-Nazi, let’s remind everyone watching he’s Jewish,’ McFaul said. ‘That doesn’t sound like somebody that’s going to sit down and negotiate a peaceful outcome.’
Ukraine’s forces have been putting up an historic resistance to the Russian military as it attempts to advance on the capital of Kyiv.
Nearly 200 Ukrainians have died as of Saturday morning since Russia’s invasion began early last week, an official at Ukraine’s Ministry of Health said. More than 1,000 Ukrainian citizens have been injured.
Russia’s casualties number more than 3,500, according to the BBC, though reports indicate that the devastating figure has not reached Kremlin-controlled media channels.
The US and its NATO allies have responded with a series of heavy economic sanctions targeting Kremlin officials including Putin himself. They’ve also imposed restrictions on Russia’s largest banks and moved to cut the country off of the SWIFT global banking system.
The European Union said Sunday it would close its airspace to all Russian planes.
Earlier Sunday Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Russia at the Hague, with Zelensky requesting that the UN International Court of Justice orders Russia to stop its attack against Ukraine and start trials.
‘Ukraine has submitted its application against Russia to the ICJ. Russia must be held accountable for manipulating the notion of genocide to justify aggression. We request an urgent decision ordering Russia to cease military activity now and expect trials to start next week,’ Zelensky said in a statement on Twitter.
