After Stalin brutalized his own people the Soviets put checks and balances on their leaders. Putin is blustery but even he knows that if he ever made a determined decision to deploy nukes, he would suffer a sudden “health issue”. There is still a lot of the Soviet old guard lingering in Russia’s government. They’re not as unbalanced as the image they let Putin project.

Given their flaccid military achievements in Ukraine, their economy on the brink of ruin and the money lost by the oligarchs, I predict Putin’s days are numbered.

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