The West Has Cornered Putin—and That’s When He’s Most Dangerous
There have been many instances of Putin unpleasantly surprising his adversaries, who thought they had him cornered. There was the time that protests were growing over the construction of Moscow-St. Petersburg road (by a French company) as it was going to cut through a protected Russian forest. Putin halted construction, waited for public attention to shift away, and resumed the project. There were the anti-Putin protests that brought tens of thousands of Muscovites into the streets in 2011-2012. The authorities let everyone go home, even after the protest turned violent, thinking it had all blown over. Then, a couple months later, they started rounding up dozens of protesters and handing out hard prison time for throwing lemons at cops in Kevlar vests.