Each time Vladimir Putin messes up, the same question is asked: will it make any difference? Last week’s terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow, which killed 137 people, is one of the bigger crises Putin has faced in his 25-year rule. There is no doubt that he, as Russia’s head of state and overall chief of its security forces, bears ultimate responsibility for what was by any measure a catastrophic failure. In any normal political system, his resignation would be expected.

The fact this is more or less unimaginable is not necessarily a sign of Putin’s strength. His dictatorship has eviscerated checks and balances within Russian society, eliminating means of independent scrutiny. Any call for him to take personal responsibility would barely be heard, let alone acted on. Yet the Russian people, while chronically misled and serially misinformed, are not stupid.

With blood on the streets and a nation in mourning, there’s no hiding that the Putin superman myth just took a serious, bubble-bursting beating.

The Kremlin is estimated to have spent more than £1bn on “information management”, meaning lies and propaganda, to ensure Putin’s recent presidential election “victory”. In addition, there was a reported 20-fold increase in state spending on internet and media. All this had a single aim: to portray Putin as an invincible, indispensable modern-day tsar who bravely protects Mother Russia from her enemies.

Yet on Friday, four gunmen comprehensively demolished that myth........

© The Guardian