Vladimir Putin will go down in international history as a madman, a cruel despot responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and most likely just as many of his own troops, in a criminal war of terror fought with gross incompetence for no reason.
However, Putin is no longer aiming for international respect. He lost that the minute he marched on Ukraine, and he knows that. He is now desperately trying to cling to power and remain relevant within Russia. The question is whether he can keep his own population from seeing through his ever more transparent and desperate lies. For decades, the Russian army has been dismantled by neglect, incompetence and rampant corruption, to the point where it has serious trouble with performing its intended function. It was utterly foolish of Putin to order such an ineffective and broken army to invade a neighboring country which has strong connections to the democratic world and a significant capacity to defend itself.
Even in Russian history books, Putin may well be remembered as a lunatic, the person who set Russia's international relations back to the Cold War era, one who wasted the sorry remains of the Russian army on a war doomed to failure, and all for his own selfish purposes.
It's beyond me to make a guess whether Putin's efforts to save face within Russia will pay off, but I'm hoping they fail miserably for everyone to see.
