Adam Michnik interviewed by Irena Grudzińska Gross: Putin's Historic Blunder

Adam Michnik discusses the anachronistic thinking that led the Russian president to launch his ill-fated invasion. [View this message in a web browser]( [PS On Point]( JUNE 3, 2022 The moment Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine and the bombing of Kyiv, he stopped being a coolly calculating cynic and showed himself to be a deluded psychopath. Regardless of how the war shapes up, former Polish dissident leader Adam Michnik tells historian Irena Grudzińska Gross, he has already lost. [Read more](. On Point [Putin's Historic Blunder]( [Putin's Historic Blunder]( Adam Michnik interviewed by Irena Grudzińska Gross By abandoning all reason and transforming his country into an international pariah overnight, Vladimir Putin has confirmed that modern Russia is built on lies, blind obedience, and violence. The great irony is that he has even managed to fool himself. [Read more]( [Sign up for the Read More newsletter, featuring contributor book recommendations and more.]( The Big Question [Is China’s Economic Miracle Over?]( [Is China’s Economic Miracle Over?]( with George Magnus, Eswar Prasad, Nancy Qian, and Angela Huyue Zhang Shanghai’s two-month COVID-19 lockdown may finally be easing, but the highly uncertain prognosis for China’s battered economy could have major domestic and international implications. We asked PS commentators whether the country’s consistently high growth rates are now a thing of the past. [Read more]( Previously in On Point [Did US Biotechnology Help to Create COVID-19?]( [Did US Biotechnology Help to Create COVID-19?]( By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Neil Harrison While blaming China exclusively for COVID-19's apparent emergence in Wuhan, US authorities have suppressed inquiries into the role that US scientific research institutions may have played in creating the conditions for the pandemic. Yet if the coronavirus did indeed come from a lab, US culpability is almost certain. [Read more]( [The Fight of Our Lives]( [The Fight of Our Lives]( By George Soros Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have much in common: They rule by intimidation, which leads them to make mind-boggling mistakes – Putin in Ukraine, and Xi with an unsustainable zero-COVID policy. But the deep flaws of their closed societies do not imply that open societies are destined to prevail. [Read more]( [Subscribe to PS today for the latest on politics and more.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.