He was a realist and tailored his positions to appeal to the Russian mentality in the hopes of changing it from within. If he really wanted "personal gains" he wouldn't have gone back to Russia.
Because if he left, the propaganda would have easily portrayed him as a coward. Staying in Russia gave him the best chance he had to win over the populous.
Personal gains as in hoping to become the next dictator - he gambled and lost. Nothing more, nothing less. As I said, I don't believe anyone in russia wants to change the system on either political level or social level. From what I can see, (almost) everyone strives for this lifestyle. It's only a question of who comes out on top.
I don't understand why he went back to Russia --- on principle, maybe? Regardless, it wasn't worth it. He could and should have stayed in the West and pumped out anti-regime content: he would have achieved much more.
I always wondered if he went back because he hoped to use his popularity after surviving the poisoning attempt to stir up enough chaos and somehow get into power. He probably felt if he even had a 5% chance he had to take it. Him being a narcissistic opportunistic politician makes a lot more sense to me than some heroic figure who risked his life for the Russian people.
American news media is all about the narratives and they love heroes and martyrs. I imagine in the next couple of weeks this guy will be turned into the Russian MLK of some kind, some comment here already made the comparison. It's just unreal how blatantly manipulative the whole thing is.
He wanted to keep the USSR intact but also understood that was no longer an option. I'm sure he would have accepted to be PM of Russia but he was considered part of the "communist regime" and wasn't the one standing on the tanks (lets ignore the fact that Yeltin was also part of the communist regime), so that didn't happen.
Easy: he thought the coup would be the action with the highest chance of success at the point when he had committed himself to going ahead with it.
He was going to lose control of Wagner if the coup didn't succeed, whether or not he tried. So no surprise he made that attempt. You don't get to where he did in life without being bold, taking risks, and being lucky. And it's likely that at the point where he had already committed himself to the coup, it looked more likely to succeed than it does now with the benefit of hindsight.
As for why he kept hanging around Russia... where else is he going to go? He was a wanted man everywhere. Wanted by both the civilized world, and Russia. There are no good options in that circumstance.
Sure he was more traditional and self interested. But his actions were nonetheless essentially "good" in the same way He informed people that they were having their telecommunications secretly listened to. Just because it was for the benefit of Russians instead of Americans doesn't make it wrong. They're people too.
Either his backup plan for what was likely to happen was to stay in Russia, or his main plan was to do so (with the direct him of Russian intelligence in HK).
I don't see a significant difference between the two. He picked his side.
His desired end game would have been to do his "special operation" thing and puppeting Ukraine, but I guess that ship sailed, if it ever even existed outside of Putin's mind...
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