The Man On Horseback

Yeah, that's him, the guy who forgot to put his shirt on.

Putin, of course, is an old KGB Commie whose dearest wish is to restore the evil empire. So why are assorted allegedly right-wing nut jobs so drawn to him? See Lumo here and his commenters for examples. It's the horse, of course. The inner fascist just can't resist the man on horseback - real or virtual. Though a commenter on Stoat pointed out that Putin's concerns right now line up pretty well with those of our own Oiligarchy.

Right now falling oil prices, with a boost from Western sanctions, have got El Puto in a tight spot. Like Gorbachev's Soviet Union of 1989, Russia is highly dependent on oil. Vlad has a bunch of cash stockpiled, but the Ruble is looking really ugly right now and the central bank had to push up interest rates to recession producing levels - with no guarantee that that will work to stem the flight from the Ruble. Putin's oligarchical friends must be getting a bit nervous, and that may be why Russia has so far resisted capital controls which might make it harder for them to fly to dollars.

The Russkies, who still drink up nationalistic propaganda like it was vodka, still love him. How long he can get away with that if the economy tanks, big time, is hard to guess.

What's really scary, though, is what he might do if he's really trapped like a rat. He still has a big army, and there is a lot of Europe that is poorly prepared to defend itself.

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