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Picture it. A crisp early summer Tuesday morning, Moscow time.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Tsar of All the Russias, Conqueror of Crimea, Bare-Chested Equestrian of the Steppe, Owner of a Stolen Super Bowl Ring discovers the unique cardiovascular properties of the third-floor window plunge workout.

Or the tea tastes...off. You know...oolong with a note of polonium. Or some cousin or younger brother of a Wagner remnant takes his shot. Or by sheer dumb luck, a Ukrainian drone swarm finds Putin's motorcade.

However it goes down, the small bald man is gone, and the world wakes up to a Russia-shaped hole in the geopolitical map.

Like most of you, I can't wait.

Why does this matter more than the death of any other autocrat?

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Because there has never been a more uniquely pernicious figure since World War II. Putin isn't just a thug with nukes; he's the patron node of a global authoritarian franchise. Financial sanctuary for kleptocrats. Mercenary infrastructure (Wagner, Africa Corps, whatever they're calling the rebrand this quarter).

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Think about what Russia funds and pushes: Kompromat archives that go back to the Cold War, including one on the current President of the United States of America. An ideology factory pumping Duganist garbage into every Western post-liberal podcast feed. The source of global election interference on an industrial scale. And an alliance of grievance states, big cheese of the Axis of A-holes: Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Venezuela (still), Cuba (still), and dozens of proxies all running on Russian cash.

Look at the May 9 parade. No tanks. No ICBMs. No mobile column. For the first time since 2008, Red Square's cobblestones carried some iffy-looking infantry and prerecorded propaganda videos because the actual hardware is either on fire in Donetsk or rusting in Novorossiysk. The guest list was Lukashenko, the King of Malaysia, and the President of Laos, a tableau so threadbare that even Slovakia's thirsty Robert Fico couldn't bring himself to attend the parade itself.

Forty-five minutes, start to finish. They call it "scaled back." It was a wake.