putin's impulse to blame ukraine's air rather than the group launching the missile is the guilty man explanation.
people who know they are responsible for a bad act always stand out in a crowd. they cannot help themselves but to try to displace responsibility rather than excoriate the bad guys.
he needed to go straight to the point that whoever did this committed a crime and must be punished. he didn't. and that tells you he knows who did it.
he knows it was his allies, possibly with the help of his own people. an accident? of course. but reckless firing of a missile towards an unidentified plane. yes, of course.
putin is now wrestling with the possibility that his near abroad foreign policy is in tatters.
in any other leading country, he'd be removed from office over the disaster of his ukraine policy.
| 