Let’s suppose Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin woke up a while back in his latest palace with a woe-is-me attitude and thought: “Проклятиеn, I’m getting old and my life has turned into nothing better than vodka, syphilis, and anonymity with reduced odds of catching up with the great deeds of Papa Joe.”

With nothing on his resume since Crimea, he was tired of oligarchs asking, “So Vladimir Vladimirovich, what have you done for us lately?”

In his heart of hearts, such as it was, he thought of the joy Papa Joe must have felt while he was deporting residents of the Baltic countries to Siberia for real or imagined anti-Soviet behavior in 1941. Since most people didn’t know anything about that, history could safely repeat itself with a “cleansing” of Ukraine, those неблагодарные ублюдки (ungrateful bastards) who dare to turn their backs on the former USSR.

Or, there’s another possibility: he’s nuts. Several days ago, the “Daily Beast” wondered if “Putin Will Throw Mother of All Hissy Fits if Kyiv Attack Fails.” Chances are, he’s already having it even though Ukraine’s survival is looking more and more grim.

Ukraine has surprised everyone with its tenacity. If Putin hadn’t threatened a nuclear attack against anyone who intervened, would we have intervened. Probably not, though in spite of its middle ground posture, Israel might have had the guts to do it.

Putin’s ego(maniac) trip is about to change Europe and NATO forever. Too bad the syphilis didn’t kill him first.

—Malcolm