Putin in centre stage where he likes to be

Putin or Poot'n as the Americans call him, is centre stage and I guess that's how he likes it. Everyone is rushing to talk to him to plead with him, please please don't invade. As soon as one leader has sat in a chair alongside him, the next one is queuing up. Or the phone is ringing and it's Macron again. Of course everyone has their own agenda. It's not just about Ukraine. Boris Johnson currently in Kyiv wants his people back home to forget all about his Christmas party scandals, Macron is playing the Emperor of Europe role, and Biden is just tryng to get something right, anything will do, to raise his popularity ratings. Poot'n is playing the toon and everyone is dancing to it. He must be very very pleased with himself. Right now he has more power in his hands than ever before and I'm sure he gets a real kick out of it. However, there is one aspect of this whole saga that must not be forgotten. Although he has world leaders appealing to his better nature -if he has one - it's not all pleasure for him because he still suffers from the one character trait which has been with him ever since he was old enough to vote. He is totally paranoid about the West. He genuinely believes the West is out to get him, that Nato is harbouring plots to invade Russia and seize all his nukes. He doesn't believe and never has believed that Nato is anything but an aggressive alliance that wants to destroy Russia. When you suffer from that sort of paranoia it must be very difficult to get up in the morning without peering through the curtains first to doublecheck there are no Nato troops on the streets of Moscow. It's all about paranoia. All Russian leaders with the exception of Mikhail Gorbachov and possibly Boris Yelstin when he wasn't drunk, have suffered from this same paranoia. Biden and co, if they want to stop this coming war in its tracks, have somehow to convince Poot'n and his hardline cohorts that the Nato alliance is a fun-loving welcome-to-all-comers sort of club and has no intention EVER of doing anything militarily against Russia. But I guess Poot'n will never believe it. So when he invades Ukraine he will say it's all Nato's fault.