Even with a collapsing economy and the threat of international isolation, Putin is poised to escalate his war. As Foreign Affairs puts it: the Kremlin leader will go to “extreme lengths” to avoid losing in Ukraine.
The US's attempt to replay its Afghanistan "bleed Russia" strategy handed Putin his greatest strategic win, morhping Ukraine's war from a quick victory to a proctracted security crisis threatening to fracture NATO.
Chinese officials lashed out, noting that the relationship between Beijing and Moscow isn’t influenced by any third party and any attempts to do so are ''doomed to fail.''
Last week the Washington Post Deputy Editorial Director Jackson Diehl published an article titled "Putin's hope to ignite Eurasia-style protests in the…