The Mental Siege of Vladimir Putin

Life in the Kremlin bunker

The military record of former KGB spy turned autocrat Vladimir Putin has four major bullet points. Now that he has put Russian nuclear forces on alert, we must all hope he does not add a fifth, and that peace talks on the Belorussian border produce a swift end to hostilities.

Putin’s first war against Chechnya (Russia’s second) in 1999 succeeded in placi…