Has Putin lost control?

As the Soviet Union fell to pieces around our ears, we in the Moscow embassy used to discuss the Weimar precedent. A great nation, humiliated by a lost war and economic misery, tries but fails to set up a democracy. It then falls victim to a dictator who promises to restore his country’s greatness and bring justice to the millions of fellow countrymen who have been trapped in foreign countries which only exist as a result of maps drawn by the victors.

British, French, and American diplomats may have been incompetent and pusillanimous before 1939. But one man, and one man only, was responsible for the outbreak of war: Adolf Hitler when he invaded Poland. Putin is no Hitler, and Russians resent any comparison. But there’s no doubt at all that Putin’s provocative behaviour is responsible for the current mess.

Putin used to be able to judge exactly what he could get away with.