Putin, cold, crazy and losing

The fact that Vladimir Putin, an increasingly diminished-looking gangster president, summoned his defence minister Sergei Shoigu to congratulate him on winning a "victory" in Mariupol is the clearest sign yet that the Russian leader is both demented and fooling himself. There is no victory in Mariupol, unless the destruction of a once-esteemed city is viewed as a victory. Why summon Shoigu to sit opposite him for a "well-done-general" public PR event when both he and the unfortunate defence minister know full well that Russia is losing in Ukraine. Well, there is the answer. Putin did it BECAUSE he knows he is losing and needed to try and persuade the increasingly doubting Russian nation that his strategy is not just working but succeeding. When the TV cameras were switched off and the microphones put away in their boxes, did Putin turn to Shoigu out of earshot of any Kremlin flunkies and whisper in his ear: "What the .... is going on in Ukraine?" Putin must be getting madder and madder by the day. The few times he has appeared in public he looks bloated in the face, down in the mouth and spitting-angry. His comment about sealing off the iron and steel works in Mariupol where 2,000 Ukranian fighters are hold up was a clear sign of his growing frustration and alarming vengeful craziness. So far his focus on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine has elicited few territorial gains. Will he now order his troops to bomb Donbas to extinction so that not a fly or mosquito will survive? The man is dangerously demented. There will and never can be a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.