Russian President Vladimir Putin is suffering through his worst year in two decades in power. The coronavirus is raging across Russia, which has reported more than half a million cases and 8,100 deaths and is suspected of hiding many more. The economy is crashing so steeply that the government failed to issue a monthly gross domestic product report in May for the first time in 15 years. Putin’s foolish launching of an oil price war with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a bad recession worse.
OP-ED
Jackson Diehl: In 2016, Putin didn’t expect Trump to win
Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, tours the new coronavirus information centre in Moscow on March 17, 2020.
