There’s no question that Russian President Vladimir Putin has a Siberia-sized ego, and to feed it he has started to reinvent his nation’s history to make it appear persecuted by the United States. And he’s even rewriting school history books.
That comes from two top former diplomats with long histories with Moscow: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
At a conference, Vike-Freiberga said new school books produced by Russia portray the country as “a poor little orphan” picked on by the West. “He’s rewwriting history,” she said of Putin. “They are actually shipping history books into Lativia, for instance, to the Russian speaking population, picturing Russia as a poor little orphan that is being attacked by everybody, unfairly, especially by the nasty United States,” she said, adding, “it is the sort of propaganda in war time.”
Albright agreed and said Putin is “in fact made up his own facts.” One big example, said Albright, was the 2014 crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine, which many in the West believe was shot down by invading Russian troops.
“They are now inventing their own version of history,” Albright said.
The two spoke at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Former President Bill Clinton’s top diplomat suggested a couple of reasons for Putin’s actions. First, she said, “What Putin needs is an enemy.”
But as important is his, and Russia’s, ego. “An awful lot of this has to do with psychology and image.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
