General Discussion

That's the problem with krutoi. It just keeps on taking.

It's brittle. It can't give and the bigger the force against it the more it must not give lest it be seen as being weak. The only hope is that it snaps--but that can have bad consequences all on its own.

It's lose-lose. Putin's couped, and what follows is likely worse.

Like Iran, like Islamism, like mainland China, there's a certain revanchism built on romanticizing past glories that's soul rotting (a metaphor; I reject the idea of an actual 'soul'; then again, I'm non-trinitarian Xian, so heretic on several fronts, I guess). Maduro was the same--anti-imperialist but claiming a lot of Guyana for its oil based on imperialist Spanish-drawn empire-internal boundaries.

Until Russians stop loving their imperial dream of overweening self-importance, it's a problem. And that will take a couple of generations--they started, but relapsed like an alcoholic who gives in after a week or so.