Putin is running his war on the Micawber Principle: Something will turn up

(Jamie Dettmer – Politico) Charles Dickens’ character Wilkins Micawber and Vladimir Putin are an unlikely pairing. For all of his fecklessness, the fictional Micawber is a rather jolly type; the Russian leader is a man of brooding ill humor, who even when he actually cracks jokes or admits a public chuckle does so to demean and humiliate. But they do share one thing in common: faith that “something will turn up.”. Four years after he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s war looks militarily to be unwinnable. At a colossal price in lives lost and bodies maimed, his forces have failed even to capture all of the Donbas region of Ukraine. Before he sent his tanks crashing over the border, Russia occupied around seven percent of Ukraine. A month into the war it was roughy 27 percent. But since that peak, Russia has been stuck at around 18 percent to 19 percent, according to Harvard’s Belfer Center. – Putin is running his war on the Micawber Principle: Something will turn up  – POLITICO