>>513509017
>as they put a new puppet on the throne
This seems like a dumb line of thinking at this point...

If Russia was being ruled by some kind of collective of oligarchs rather than one dumb asshole, the country would have made SOME smarter decisions at a few different points.

This kind of stupidity comes into existence when a whole country has to bend itself to coddle the big baby in charge, giving you the feedback loop of bad decisions, then delusional information flowing to the top, then driving more bad decisions.