The year 2014 was supposedly one in which a chess-playing Vladimir Putin outsmarted the checkers-playing West. But even with Crimea in Russian hands, it ends on what must surely be a sour note for the Russian president. His country’s economy is in a tail-spin amid Western sanctions. The ruble is tanking. And Russian meddling in Ukraine now looks less cunning and more blundering.
That didn’t stop Putin from striking a defiant, weirdly metaphorical note when he addressed a massive crowd of at least 1,200 journalists crammed into Moscow’s World Trade Center. “Sometimes I think that maybe it would be best if …read more
Source: Foreign Policy
