Putin can rant and posture all he wants. The reality is that between 1914 and 1960, Russia lost its best people to two catastrophic wars with Germany, civil war, famine, widespread abortion and of course the barbarity of Lenin and Stalin who murdered millions of their own people. Russia will never replace those genetic losses. It will never realize the potential it once had. If it were not for its abundant natural resources and arable land, it would be little more than a historic afterthought.
To Allendale, No. 22. Still, Putin is an super-egotistic totalitarian (he’s still KGB in his heart and head). He’s got nukes, the killing FSB/KGB, Spetnaz, and territorial ambitions. He’s always plotting, killing, invading on a small scale, and aiding our enemies in Iran, Venezuela and other parts of Latin America.
A little man is more dangerous than a big man because he wants it (his dreams) more and is willing to do anything to get it.
And yet to this day, even Russians who hated Stalin, acknowledge that he turned the Soviet Union into a modern industrialized state.