Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has given a fawning interview in which he claimed—with a completely straight face—that the Russian leader is basically a calculating genius with no tolerance for “incompetent people.” “He absolutely cannot stand incompetent people next to him,” Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Serbian TV station ATV, according to TASS. Peskov said Putin also “can’t stand when a person goes after something but doesn’t possess the proper level of knowledge for it.” And no matter what he is dealing with, Peskov claimed, the Russian president prefers to “master” the subject at hand. All of which is very weird, of course, because Putin was apparently duped into believing Moscow could seize control of Kyiv in a matter of days last year. And now, despite more than a full year of war, the Kremlin has very little to show for it. Perhaps that is why Peskov, in his comments to ATV, said it is a “great honor” to work as Putin’s press secretary—but admitted that the country is experiencing a “traumatic period.”
