in the atlantic arguing that vladimir putin is falling into the dictator trapped. thank you both for being here. vladimir, let me start with you, you know firsthand and just how dangerous putin can be. where do you see this conflict going next? do you believe putin is going to escalate, not just in ukraine, but he was saying in his address, today escalated home against russian dissidents and activists? well, we have 22 years of track record of vladimir putin s dictatorship to evaluate the situation. mr. putin came to power a generation ago, the first thing he did was he began targeting independent media, political opponents, opposition parties, election, so on. in russia, in all this time while he was doing this, he was dismantling and destroying democracy, checks and balances on our country. western leaders continues all from red carpet treatment, shake his hand, declare resets and so on, as we were discussing in the previous segment of your program.
Streak of aggression is to have vladimir putin finally out of power, only russians in russia can do that, needless to say. of course. brian, let me bring you in here, vladimir referred to a deranged dictator in russia, but is a dictator shock you believe he s fallen into? there is this long-standing myth of what is called-savvy or genius that s associated with strong men, and it s a myth. they fall into dictatorships because what they do is they try to create a fake reality, in order to conserve people today should be in charge, spread propaganda, etc. then they succumb to miscalculation because they believe that reality is actually true. vladimir putin has long been surrounded by yes men, who operate like bubble heads, who basically say yes to everything. those who say no to him and a purge. over 22 years you have cronies who will tell you your genius, you are savvy, and you re doing everything right. one of the other things that
He deflected, and accuse the west of, i kid you not, cancel russia and its culture. it s the same defense you see right wingers on twitter use, when they face consequences for their own behavior. cancel culture. unlike those other twitter trolls, vladimir putin has nuclear weapons. joining me now, vladimir carr meza, a russian opposition activist and former opposition he was poisoned twice, once in 2015, and once in 2017. those attacks were later tied to the russian federal security service, also with me tonight brian class, i don t associate professor of political science
brian, do you agree with that, there were some like putin we have to placate his ego for getting out of these steel? i think that when you try to appease dictators it s a losing game. i also think it s a situation where, if we go down that road, we are only going to open ourselves up to further conflict. obviously, if putin can claim some sort of small small victory, that would open up a road to piece that is worth considering. but i also think it s important that he seem to lose this war. it s crucial that he is seem to have catastrophically miscalculated. otherwise, i think it ll pave the way for further gretchen in the future, and will we ll be right back here in win another war in another month or years. the same way i think we should ve had a harsher response to many many other acts of aggression that vladimir putin perpetrated on the global stage. vladimir, you are shaking your head there. if putin can t be trusted, as i m assumed you re about to say, with any diplomatic deal. where does that leave us?