Putin's resistance to Russia's imperial decline and fall will prove futile

Today, Putin enjoys popularity at home based on the success of Russian arms in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and the Donbas

I scuttled through Moscow’s backstreets early in October 1993, skirting the soldiers besieging the White House, Russia’s imposing parliament building. My destination: Lefortovo prison, where I was to interview nationalist parliamentarians and gunmen opposed to President Boris Yeltsin — who had locked them up before they could join the legislature’s revolt against his government.  

It was a time that in many ways resonates with our contemporary turmoil.

The disheveled men rounded up in that notorious political prison loathed Yeltsin and his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev for their part in dismantling the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin has lamented its collapse as “the greatest geopolitical