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Fall of the House of Putin?
The house of cards Vladimir Putin has built may be about to fall spectacularly apart and crush him. His replacement might be worse.
Media coverage of the war in Ukraine has swung wildly between rosy optimism and direst pessimism ever since Russian troops first invaded in February.
“Ukraine war: Who is winning?” wondered the BBC way back on September 20, 2022, without presuming to give a definitive answer. All these many months later, the question is just as complicated as ever.
As to the answer, there are opinions aplenty. Then again, opinions differ.
“Putin’s dream of Russian victory slips away in Ukraine,” crowed the BBC on October 7, 2022, prematurely as it would turn out.
“The best path to peace is not talks with Putin, but helping Ukraine to win this war,” extolled Timothy Garton Ash, just as hopefully, for The Guardian on November 23, 2022.
“There will come a time for negotiations — but calls to reach a deal with the Kremlin now are more wrong-headed than ever,” the author scolded.
“‘Losing is not an option’: Putin is ‘desperate’ to avoid defeat in Ukraine as anxiety rises in Moscow,” reported CNBC, somewhat less optimistically, on November 29, 2022.