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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/vladimir-putin-has-almost-messianic-belief-in-himself-says-hillary-clinton
Vladimir Putin has an “almost messianic belief in himself” and does not like critics, especially if they are women, the former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said.
Clinton recalled that she “had some positive developments” working closely with Putin between 2009 and 2013 when he was prime minister of Russia, but the relationship soured when she criticised the “blatantly crooked” elections which returned him to the presidency in 2012.
Speaking to an audience at the Hay festival, Clinton said her assertion that Russians “deserve to have their voices heard and votes counted” and “an election that meets international standards” prompted protests by tens of thousands of Russians, which Putin then blamed her for.
The former Democratic party presidential hopeful, who lost out to Donald Trump in 2016, said: “Putin does not like critics, especially women critics. Putin then became very adversarial toward me with few exceptions. As we know, despite efforts to say to the contrary, he worked very hard to get Trump elected through all kinds of means.”
Clinton said she had witnessed “his almost messianic belief in himself and what he was destined to be” as well of his “goal of restoring imperial Russia” while working with him. This had prompted her to write memos warning he would become a “threat to Europe and the rest of the world”, although she had hoped that friendly relations with the US would make him “shelve his aggressive ambitions and look to be more cooperative”.
She said: “When he invaded Ukraine I was sadly not surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised at how effective the government of [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy and Ukraine defended themselves.”
She also considered it positive that Nato had come together to supply Ukrainians with weaponry, which confirmed for her “a need to keep the institutions we have and try to make them more effective for the future”. She noted that had Trump been returned to power in 2020, he would probably have pulled the US out of Nato.
Clinton called for the creation of a tribunal similar to those held after the Balkan wars and Rwandan genocide to hold individual Russians accountable for their war crimes, though she acknowledged that it was “always difficult to go after a head of state” unless they were deposed.
Her interviewer, Helena Kennedy, who is among a group of human rights lawyers working to find ways to make Russia accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine, asked whether such a tribunal could open the UK and US to scrutiny of their actions in the Iraq war.
Clinton said: “[It] could, but I think it’s less likely than people imagine.”
I write from Ukraine, where I've spent much of the past six months, reporting on the build-up to the conflict and the grim reality of war. It has been the most intense time of my 30-year career. In December I visited the trenches outside Donetsk with the Ukrainian army; in January I went to Mariupol and drove along the coast to Crimea; on 24 February I was with other colleagues in the Ukrainian capital as the first Russian bombs fell.
This is the biggest war in Europe since 1945. It is, for Ukrainians, an existential struggle against a new but familiar Russian imperialism. Our team of reporters and editors intend to cover this war for as long as it lasts, however expensive that may prove to be. We are committed to telling the human stories of those caught up in war, as well as the international dimension. But we can't do this without the support of Guardian readers. It is your passion, engagement and financial contributions which underpin our independent journalism and make it possible for us to report from places like Ukraine.
If you are able to help with a monthly or single contribution it will boost our resources and enhance our ability to report the truth about what is happening in this terrible conflict.
Thank you.
Luke Harding
Foreign correspondent
