HASA former adviser to Jacques Chirac at the Élysée, Héléna Perroud knows Russia perfectly, having been born there and having studied its history and culture closely. Russian speaker and author of a biography on Vladimir Putin, A Russian named Putin (Rocher), she detects in her desire to invade Ukraine a limpid coherence and not the unexpected act of an unbalanced person. It inscribes the Russian president in an ancient tradition which has forged his bellicose motivations, beyond the memory of the tsars and the Soviet revolutionaries. In some ways, the man even merges with his people.
Point : Is there any consistency between the Vladimir Putin we see at work today and the one you describe in your book?
Consult our file: War in Ukraine
