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How Putin’s unshakeable fear of being ‘killed like Gaddafi’ fuelled attacks on US as he prepares for Biden showdown
VLADIMIR Putin is said to have an unshakeable fear of being killed like Libyan tyrant Colonel Gaddafi - which has fuelled his attacks on the US.
US President Joe Biden will tomorrow meet Putin for the first time both as presidents in a summit which is predicted to be tense and a return to the uneasy status quo between the US and Russia.
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Biden is expected to confront Putin as relations between the two superpowers have hit rocket bottom - with the veteran Democrat branding his opposite number a "killer".
Election meddling, cyber attacks and military tensions over Ukraine are all expected to be on the table as the two butt heads and squabble for status on the world stage.
Despite great overtures to warm up relations between the West and Russia at the end of the Cold War, things have frozen over once again in the last decade.
And one of the turning points is said to be Putin's reaction to the Western intervention in Libya back in 2011.
The Russian leader is believed to be haunted by the scenes in which the tyrannical Gaddafi was brutalised before being executed by a mob.
And all of it was captured on video, which further disturbed Vlad who reportedly considered it a warning shot to his own regime.
He is said to have "obsessively" watched the video, according to The Atlantic, and seen it as a wake up call.
Putin is claimed to have decided he would stand up against the West, or he would be next to be torn apart in a revolution.
The Russian leader has now been in power for the better part of two decades - and has consolidated his iron grip by changing election laws and crushing any opposition.
What happened to Gaddafi?
COLONEL Gaddafi's brutal regime came to an end on October 20, 2011, when he was cornered by a revolutionary mob.
He was killed in a frenzied execution staged by rebels after being found hunkered down in a storm drain in Sirte, Libya.
Chilling video captured the tyrant's final moments as he was seen covered in blood amongst a crowd of fighters who are chanting "God is great".
The dictator - who committed war crimes and viciously oppressed his people - can be heard begging for mercy in the clips, saying "what you're doing is wrong".
"What is the matter? What’s going on? What do you want?" the bloodied tyrant pleaded.
Jeers of "you dog" and cheers of "victory" can be heard as the bewildered dictator was captured by the mob.
He is reported to have been beaten and tortured by the rebels - including having a knife or bayonet inserted into his anus.
Gaddafi was then shot at close range, with some reports stating he was executed with his own custom-made gold gun.
His body was placed on public display inside a freezer so the population would have proof that the vile ruler was dead.
Putin enemy Yuri Felshtinsky previously told The Sun Online recent unrest sparked by the the jailing of regime critic Alexi Navalny will only deepen the 68-year-old's fears of ending up like Gaddafi.
Felshtinsky agreed that Putin is terrified that if he were ever to loosen the grip, then a similar bitter end awaits him.
“Correct – this he knows,” Felshtinsky told The Sun Online.
“He’s bright enough to know that under normal rules, his system of government cannot exist. He’s not an idealist.
“He knows there’s no way he can survive unless he continues to oppress.
“The lesson that Putin will have learnt after the recent events is that he should control more and that he should repress more. And that’s what we will see.”
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Putin furiously condemned the death of Gaddafi and directly referenced the disturbing footage at a news conference in 2011.
He said: "Almost all of Gaddafi’s family has been killed, his corpse was shown on all global television channels, it was impossible to watch without disgust.
"The man was all covered in blood, still alive and he was being finished off."
The intervention in Libya was spearheaded by secretary of state at the time, Hillary Clinton, who persuaded then president Barack Obama to intervene.
Clinton joked: "We came, we saw, he died."
Putin branded the UN resolution backing a the military intervention as a "medieval call to the crusades".
The former KGB agent was serving as Russia's Prime Minister at the time, spending four years in the role between back-to-back double terms as the president from 2000 to 2008 and then 2012 to now.
reported in 2017 that this was the moment which convinced Putin the West was his enemy and left him paranoid of efforts to undermine him through uprisings in Russia.
Obama’s national-security adviser Tom Donilon said: "From the outset of his second run as President, in my judgment, he was bringing Russia to a posture of pretty active hostility toward the United States and the West."
He added: "The communication really broke after that."
Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar said Putin learned from Gaddafi's death that "weakness and compromise" were not an option.
He said: "When he was a pariah, no one touched him.
"But as soon as he opened up he was not only overthrown but killed in the street like a mangy old cur."
And from Clinton's enthusiastic backing of the end of Gaddafi, it may have driven Putin to throw himself behind former US President Donald Trump.
Putin once again this week praised Trump as "extraordinary" - while accusing his successor Biden of trying to be "macho" and "Hollywood".
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Biden and Putin will not hold a news conference after their landmark meeting as the White House do not want them on the same stage.
They will meet as leaders for the first time on Wednesday at a summit in Geneva.
The US President has insisted he will be giving Putin a piece of his mind, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will be sending "pretty tough messages".
It comes after off Biden’s previously made claim he was a "killer".
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The long-serving Russian leader also bizarrely chortled at allegations he had a hand in assassinating some of his political rivals and Kremlin critics.
"Over my tenure, I've gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds of areas under all kinds of pretext and reasons and of different caliber and fierceness, and none of it surprises me," Putin said, according to a snippet from the 90-minute .
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The Russian leader then appeared to praise former President Donald Trump.
“Mr. Trump is an extraordinary individual, talented individual, otherwise he would not have become US President. He is a colorful individual. You may like him or not," he said.
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