Putin’s Syrian strategy part of plan to secure gains closer to home

Nina L Khrushcheva says the Russian president has an unlikely bedfellow in Donald Trump, whose bullying style from the stump is similar to his own

AT HIS annual year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin was as informal, audacious, and offensive as his favourite American presidential candidate, Donald Trump. He answered a question about the state of the country with a joke.

“How’s life?” one man asks another.