Bad news: Putin is looking happy and confident

After all those pictures of Vladimir Putin looking sick, unsteady on his feet, angry, morose and generally not in a good mood, suddenly all has changed. He now looks smiley, confident, even swaggering. No sign of ill health. Once more a leader apparently in charge. One of the reasons is that he appears to be relishing pounding Ukraine's critical infrastructure to bits. It's a win win for him, never mind the criticism from around the world. And then there's his success in persuading Joe Biden to swap super-nasty arms dealer Viktor Bout, convicted of conspiracy to kill Americans, for a basketball player who was caught with a bit of marijuana at Moscow airport. Bout by some accounts has strong ties with Russian intelligence, thus is a buddy of Putin's and the Russian leader has been trying to get his release from US jail for years. Another win win for Putin. There was a picture of him consorting with young military officers at some function and he looked excessively pleased with himself, even though he was a good deal shorter than any of them. So Putin has shaken off all the bad news that has enveloped him since his disastrous invasion of Ukraine and has taken on a new lease of life. This is bad news for everyone, especially Ukranians, the Kyiv government, Biden and Nato.