What does Putin do next? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers and experts take a deeper look at the future for the Russian leader. • Putin is getting more desperate. It won’t end well• Furious Putin is trapped in a gilded cage. Only death will free him• Putin and Xi’s bromance could fall apart – and it’s all down to Trump• Putin has made a vast strategic error. This relationship shows us why• The worst war the Soviets ever fought is now haunting Putin• Putin has turned Russia into a ‘crack cocaine’ economy – he’s trapped• Putin is nothing without war. The contrast with his overlord Xi couldn’t be starker

What does Putin do next? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers and experts take a deeper look at the future for the Russian leader.

• Putin is getting more desperate. It won’t end well• Furious Putin is trapped in a gilded cage. Only death will free him• Putin and Xi’s bromance could fall apart – and it’s all down to Trump• Putin has made a vast strategic error. This relationship shows us why• The worst war the Soviets ever fought is now haunting Putin• Putin has turned Russia into a ‘crack cocaine’ economy – he’s trapped• Putin is nothing without war. The contrast with his overlord Xi couldn’t be starker

Russia’s mercenaries were supposed to save Mali. The military regime of Assimi Goïta granted itself five more years in power last December, but is totally reliant on Russia’s “Africa Corps” to survive the Islamist militias who have besieged the country’s capital.

But Putin’s troops are currently surrounded there, as fighters from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) torch fuel trucks and drag women off public transport. Large swathes of the country are under terrorist control and the Russian mercenaries have all but given up trying to retake them.

The upside for Vladimir Putin is that he has plunged yet another part of the West’s periphery into permanent instability.

Spin the globe to Iran and the pattern of Russian involvement tells the same basic story. The Russian- made air........

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