the defeat of russian forces in syria is a major sign of weakness for putin. it's exactly the kind of humiliation that authoritarian regimes cannot afford to tolerate. as the great kasparov wrote:  "dictatorships must be feared to survive, so they cannot bear being mocked." no matter how much sway putin's propaganda machine has over russian society today, developments like this are impossible to ignore even for the most fanatical of his supporters. after years of selling "delusions of grandeur" to the russian people as a justification for their decline in living standards, a defeat in ukraine would mean the end of the putin regime, and putin knows it.   866096840258531630
Anarchist