Politics returns to Russia

The broader consequences of the Ukrainian counter-offensive

Wars are won and lost as politics.  Ukraine wins its war when the Russian system bends. But where is the politics in Russia? 

In the series of brilliant lectures that brought me into east European history, my teacher Thomas W. Simons, Jr. spoke of "the return of politics" in late communism as the beginning of the end.  In communist regimes, as in the Pu…