Former Ambassador Questions Putin’s Mental Capabilities: ‘You Can Tell He’s Not Well’

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, called into question Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mental stability in a discussion with MSNBC’s Katy Tur on Monday.

“People around him, they know, they can tell, they understand that he’s not acting rationally,” Taylor told Tur in reply to a question about whether or not Putin feels “backed into a corner.”

Taylor, who has extensive experience dealing with Putin, continued:

You can tell from some of these videos where he’s talking to his people, or he’s talking to somebody at his base, and he’s contorted with hatred. You can tell he’s not well. You can imagine there are people that noticed this and want to be sure he doesn’t do anything crazy.

“People are not willing to give him the true picture of what’s going on in Ukraine,” he added.

“I imagine he’s amazed and surprised and probably angry at those people in the room that they have not been able to wrap this up,” Taylor continued. “He thought they would go in there and take Ukraine in one day, and it’s five days and Ukrainians are fighting back hard and they don’t want to tell him that.”

On Sunday, Putin raised eyebrows across the globe when he, citing “aggressive statements” by NATO, increased the readiness of Russia’s nuclear weapons. Pundits and observers questioned Putin’s rationality as he increased concern that the invasion of Ukraine could lead to nuclear war.

Putin is “potentially putting in play forces that, if there’s a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous,” a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press over the weekend.

Watch the full clip above, via MSNBC

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