Free Republic

The three major summits of world leaders that took place across Asia in the past week have made one thing clear: Vladimir Putin is now sidelined on the world stage. Putin, whose attack on Ukraine over the past nine months has devastated the European country and roiled the global economy, declined to attend any of the diplomatic gatherings – and instead found himself subject to significant censure as international opposition to his war appeared to harden. A meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in Bangkok closed on Saturday with a declaration that references nations’ stances expressed in other...

Independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin attributed Putin’s silence to the fact he has built a political system akin to that of the Soviet Union, in which a leader — or “vozhd” in Russian, a term used to describe Josef Stalin — by definition is incapable of making mistakes. “Putin and Putin’s system … is built in a way that all defeats are blamed on someone else: enemies, traitors, a stab in the back, global Russophobia — anything, really,” Oreshkin said. “So if he lost somewhere, first, it’s untrue, and second — it wasn’t him.” When Russia’s top military brass announced...