Donnacha Ó Beacháin

You see, again, it's important to stress the difference between a democracy, and we're used to thinking in that way, where

You know, our government prioritizes housing, health, education, transport.

We, of course, always argue that it never spends enough, never does enough, but they are the priorities.

In a dictatorship such as that governed from the Kremlin, the priorities are not the same.

The main priority is staying in power.

And the supplementary objectives are projecting power.

You know, so whereas Michal Martin or, you know, Simon Harris, when they retire, Leo Varadkar is already retired.

I mean, they look forward to lecture tours, you know, spending more time perhaps with their family and friends, writing memoirs.

With dictatorships, it's very different.

You stay in power until you die because you can't trust anyone to devolve power to.

And you're isolated from the people because you don't rely on external aid.

You don't rely on domestic taxation.

The fossil fuels that Russia generates, I mean, 77% of Russia is in Siberia.

Siberia is one of the earliest areas colonized and conquered by the Russians.

That's where all the raw materials and the wealth comes from, and it goes directly into the Kremlin's coffers.

So they have a certain insularity from democratic pressures, as we would call them, that you don't have in consolidated democracies.

That's number one.

That's not to say that there aren't patriotic Russians who genuinely believe in the cause that this special military operation involves.

And of course, there is also that element that

you know, when my country's at war, I don't want my country to lose.