BUBBLE BOY:

The Russo-Japanese War was a rude awakening for the Tsar of All the Russians. He reeled at the news that the tiny island nation -- approximately two per cent of Russia's land mass -- could defeat the Empire. His subjects, high and low, took note. Yet, Nicholai neither addressed his military shortcomings nor the social unrest they triggered, with fatal results twelve years later.

Although the current Russo-Ukraine War is far from over, Moscow's initial assault has, in military parlance, reached its "Culmination Point". Whilst being sold as "the end of Phase One", Putin's legions, because of their own logistical shortcomings, Ukraine's splendid defence, President Zelensky's inspirational leadership, and aided by the supply of Western munitions, cannot continue with their current plan of operations. Exhausted, they have paused to re-plan, reinforce and resupply. Tsar Vladimir the First has reached his "Tsushima moment" for many of the same reasons his predecessor was literally sunk by his supposedly inferior opponents, the Japanese.

Just as Ken Adam's Jewish family fled Nazi persecution in 1934, nine years earlier the Russian Jews, Judah and Anna Asimov, fled the unrest of Communist Russia, landing in New York in 1923. Their brilliant son, Isaac, born near Smolensk in 1920, but better known for his Foundation and Robot series of science fiction, once observed that "the easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists".

Faced with his own Tsushima, Vladimir Putin still has a chance to recalibrate his nation and his army. However, on past form, the real-life Ian Fleming villain, wrapped in his billions, lurking in his professional Neanderthal cave, surrounded by his men in black, will likely conform to Asimov's astute assertion of denial, and burrow deeper into the lair he has built for himself.

Tweet   @brothersjudd