More than a million Russians have been killed or seriously wounded on the battlefields of Ukraine. But there is one man who owes his life to the continuing slaughter. For Vladimir Putin, an outbreak of peace means certain death – by assassination, overthrow and execution, or in an international prison cell as a war criminal. The Russian president's only credible hope of survival in the gangster state he has himself created is to prolong the 'special military operation' in Ukraine or to win in such outrageously successful terms that he can turn his attention to other former client states, other...