Even after 25 years in power, war is still all Putin can offer Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin:

When Boris Yeltsin suddenly resigned as Russia’s first post-Communist president on New Year’s Eve, 1999, his country seemed to be spiralling downhill into economic and political disintegration.

Few gave his largely unknown successor as acting president much chance of reversing the economic implosion or remaining in office for long. The then-Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s media operation had already begun to portray the ex-KGB operative in stark contrast to the moribund