Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "The Evolution of Putin: How Russia's Leader Became an Autocrat - TLDR News" video.

Being in power too long usually makes that person more paranoid and they end up seeing enemies everywhere, externally and internally in Russia. It's sad really because Russia with the natural resources it's got should be doing much better on the economic front, I know Russians like to think Russia is doing well on the economic front but if you put it into context with say some eastern EU members which are still developing and have far less natural resources, Russia is doing quite poor and the sad thing is, most of that wealth is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg, so even by eastern EU standards, Russia isn't doing that great.
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Bush didn't help matters with its go it alone thing, even most of Europe distanced themselves from the US at the time and yeah, that is probably a big factor in Putin's changed views on the west, the way the US acted back then.
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If you think about it and look at all the natural resources Russia is blessed with, have they really been doing well on the economy front? Most countries would love to have the natural resources Russia have got and with a competent government, would very likely be doing better than what Russia is doing already. Russia isn't doing any better than the eastern EU members which are still developing and have very little natural resources and we should remember that a lot of the wealth in Russia is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg. So is Russia really doing well? Considering its natural resources, I would say no and would say they are doing quite bad, Russia as a country should have a far higher GDP per capita than the eastern EU members and yet they don't and that's down to two things, mismanagement of the economy and not much trust in the economy because of the government which harms foreign direct investment. So it never came as a surprise to me that Russia isn't doing well in Ukraine, Russia has a pretty weak economy and it's the economy that projects power.
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I suspect paranoia comes with the job and Putin does see enemies everywhere, even inside Russia.
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@edsiles4297 Clearly opportunistic, he went where the wind was going and said what he thinks the people wanted to hear, basically anything to get into power. Boris Johnson is the same, swinging from being pro to Eurosceptic on the EU depending on the mood of the British people, basically, he more or less said what he thinks the Brexiteers wanted to hear to get into power and getting into power was his real agenda, I doubt he cared about Brexit one way or the other but he saw an opening to power and took it, history has shown many times are leaders do this.
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To be fair, it's a two-way thing, yes the US royally messed up under the Bush Administration which is likely a big part of why Putin thinks like he does, but Russia would have to want to change a lot if it really wanted to be western. The irony is, if Russia did become western and with the natural resources it's got, it would be a lot richer than it is today, After all, Russia isn't really doing any better than the eastern EU members which are still developing, Russia has a lot more natural resources compared to them and to make it worse for Russia, a lot of the wealth is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg. So yeah Russia isn't doing that well and could have been a lot richer with the right leadership and policies in place, so on the surface Putin did well for Russia, but in reality, he's not done that great for Russia considering its natural resources and you only have to look at the eastern European countries that joined the EU to see that.
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