(CNN) -- Vice President Joe Biden recently confided a sensational bit of news to the New Yorker magazine: In a 2011 meeting with Vladimir Putin, he had actually told Russia's then-prime minister that he had no "soul." Even more remarkable was Putin's response. "And he looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said, 'We understand one another.' " Many people -- in Ukraine, Europe, America and even Russia -- probably share Biden and Putin's estimation of the Russian president's spiritual condition. In saying Putin has no soul, it means he seems to lack both the capacity to feel emotions and to show empathy.
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Alexander Motyl says Putin has promoted, supplied Russian and pro-Russian terrorists
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Motyl: Putin was member of brutal secret police and behind invasions in Georgia, Ukraine
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He is evil enough for all to condemn, Motyl says; countries' silence implies approval
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Motyl: France, Germany must end economic ties with Russia; EU must take a moral stand
In the final analysis, the willingness of France, Germany and all the other states making up the European Union to respond to @placeholder's evil doing will determine the moral fate of the EU.