What drives Vladimir Putin?

Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine uncannily reflect the motivations of one of Russian literature’s most famous antiheroes, Dostoevsky's Rodion Raskolnikov. Read by Helen Lloyd.

Engelsberg Ideas is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit.

Image: Vladimir Putin at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels. Credit: Peter Cavanagh / Alamy Stock Photo