PUTIN
His Downfall and Russia’s Coming Crash
Richard Lourie
Pan Macmillan
264 pages; Rs 599
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has never looked more powerful. He has all but “won” – for want of a better term – the civil war for his client dictator in Syria, gaining access to an airbase and a port on the Mediterranean coast, a long-held Czarist dream. His Crimean conquest is intact. He has helped the world’s sole super-power elect his favoured candidate to the White House. He and his patsy, Donald Trump, may be the pantomime villains for the West,
