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It's almost as if Putin is brilliant, really - he's outfoxing Obama all the time.

Putin himself is a character out of fiction, an uber-macho former Soviet thug running a massive, expansionist kleptocracy. The man stages photographs riding horses barechested and hunting tigers. His enemies find themselves on the wrong end of radioactive poisoning.

Putin stands for the opposite of a universal ideology; he has become an arch-nationalist of a pre-Cold War type, making mystic appeals to motherland and religion.

They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone.

It is a very big exaggeration to say I am a friend of Mr. Putin.

Putin is sometimes described as a revanchist, seeking to recreate the Soviet Union. That is a useful shorthand, but it is not really accurate.

I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy, that are really an imperialist power that want to expand.

Putin believes Russia is back, and he may be right.

Putin probably, almost certainly, thinks that one of the great disasters of the 20th century was the demise of the Soviet Union. It's very obvious that he's trying to work its way back and maintain something similar to that sort of institution.

President Obama took charge of the Oval Office seven years ago. He promised a positive reset in relations with Russia. But with the radioactive poisoning of a British spy in London, the downing of passenger jets over Europe, and the aggressive advances of Russian forces from Ukraine to Syria, President Putin of Russia has rebuked Mr. Obama.