Soon, an entire year will have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a campaign that was intended to end in bloodless triumph within a week or so.
But despite the slaughter of at least 40,000 soldiers, the forcible displacement of at least 14 million civilians and the destruction of at least 140,000 buildings, Vladimir Putin's colossal ambition has backfired into a monumental debacle, accomplishing nothing.
This is the most disastrous military offensive on European soil since the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940. But while Mussolini had Hitler to bail him out, Putin has absolutely no one.
In well-established democracies, failed political leaders can be replaced either at the ballot box or by resignation. Many American presidents have lost bids for re-election, among them John Adams, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, and one, Richard Nixon, actually resigned.
But throughout its long history, Russia has no tradition of stable democracy or of peaceful transfer of authority. Russian leaders usually are dispatched by mayhem and murder, a fearful prospect that must give Putin fright.
Tsarina Catherine the Great of Russia assumed power in 1762 only by deposing and murdering her own husband, Tsar Peter III. Catherine's son and heir, Tsar Paul, was assassinated in 1801.
A terrorist bomb hurled beneath his horse-drawn carriage killed Tsar Alexander II in 1881.
Terrorist bullets assassinated the prime minister to Tsar Nicholas II, Petr Stolypin, at a theater in Kyiv in 1911.
Successor to Stolypin as the dominant adviser to Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, was the sinister mystic Grigori Rasputin, who had a hypnotic appeal to the weak-willed and incompetent.
On Dec. 30, 1916, having somehow survived a large ingestion of rat poison and three bullets of would-be assassins earlier that day, Rasputin drowned beneath the shattered ice of a frozen river.
Following their ouster in 1917 and the consequent abolition of the Russian monarchy, Nicholas II, Alexandra, and their five children were shot to death in 1918. Supposedly, the era of autocracy was over and the pacific rule of the proletariat would prevail.
But the Bolsheviks were at least as violent, if not worse. Vladimir Lenin died mysteriously in 1924, probably having been poisoned by Joseph Stalin, who drove his own wife to suicide in 1932. A stricken Stalin died in 1953, apparently because his aides would not help him.
Conniving to succeed Stalin were secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and top bureaucrat Nikita Khrushchev. Beria was outmaneuvered and executed forthwith.
In stark contrast to Soviet tradition, Molotov was not exactly killed, although he was appointed "ambassador" to Outer Mongolia, which was sort of like being ambassador to Alcatraz. He hasn't been heard of since, and may still be there.
Manifestly, Putin has no precedent for a long, leisurely retirement. Mankind may have to manage without him.
An update of an old joke would have Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un as passengers aboard the "Titanic." Which one was saved? The world.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
