Christopher Blakeslee writes:

Once the communists lost totalitarian control, Russia instead devolved into a free-wheeling kleptocratic oligarchy and remained so until finally being reined in by the most elite of communist-era bureaucrats, alumni of the KGB. Foremost among them was Vladimir Putin…

This is plain wrong, Putin never was foremost — on the contrary, he progressed only to KGB Lt. Col. His post-Germany career initially nosedived so much that Putin in serious mind mode had considered taxi cab driver job. Under cognate circumstances Shebarshin or Kryuchkov probably wouldn’t have become narrow-minded, antwacky conspicuous rulers.

You’re never gonna win Cold War II through painting by old numbers. By the way, the Ukraine hasn’t seen any population census since 2001. How comfortable it will be for them to write off all losses on war.