they did everything to make him into a martyr.
Been listening to a lot of John Gray* lately describing the problems in the modern liberal order (short story liberal democracy is dead and not coming back and worse things are on therise).
Anyhoo... he mentions (as I do sometimes) the problem of people who are in office too long. As they become cocooned in their political bubble they become alienated fromm the public they are supposed to represent or serve and when they've been around too long they lose the ability to recognize mistakes.... so when a policy doesn't work they double down and quadruple down instead of trying something else....
He gives the example of Margaret Thatcher who was weirdly obsessed with the idea of a poll tax. After it failed in Scotland she was undeterred and tried to introduce it in England which led to her ouster from power.
This also explains putain's reluctance to use any of the many exit ramps available to him before... no one around can tell him the truth.
And once you get ahead by killing enemies (which I don't think any supporter of his can deny he's done) you lose the ability to discern if killing a particular enemy is a good idea.
but the broken russian system of government means he stays in power until he's dead (if you think that guy hopping around with completely differen body language and weird bumps on his cheeks is really putain) or there's some kind of coup.... there are literally no other ways of changing a head of state now.
*not the 'men are from mars' guy, he's someone completely different:
youtube.com/watch?v=6rsGkfngA5M