Following the celebrations of the Millennium and our entry into the 21st century, it was to be hoped that the days when a brutal dictator could bring mindless death and destruction to another country, and even to his own people, were over, and that the lessons of the past had been well and truly learned. A forlorn hope, as it transpires, for yet another monster has raised its ugly head above the slimy cesspit which such monsters inhabit, one to rival those of the past such as Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. For now, we have Vladimir Putin, a depraved, deranged, warmongering megalomaniac who threatens the peace of the entire planet.

In former times the appropriate description of Putin would have been ‘evil’; ‘a monster’; ‘the Devil incarnate’; ‘ghoulish’, ‘an excrescence’, etcetera, but we no longer live in the Middle Ages and such appellations no longer suffice. And anyway, what adjective exists to describe a person who has no respect for human life? In their place we have the terminology of modern-day psychiatry. So, is it possible to get inside the mind of Putin and discover what makes this ruthless, brutal, and amoral dictator ‘tick’?

The answer is ‘Yes’, but it is not to be found in any textbook of psychiatry. Instead, the clues are to be found in a scientific paper, published by a female psychiatrist as long ago as the year 1997, and in the known side effects of the illness from which he is currently suffering.

A new and unique insight is now offered into the mind of Putin, one which has not previously been advanced.