WASHINGTON — Well, how are things going for Vladimir Putin? He has been showing a KGB sleuth’s cunning at warfare for over a year now, and he has been doing it against an enemy who is outgunned and outnumbered. Oh yes, and by the way, that enemy is also winning the war. All Putin’s forces have been able to win is the battle for Bakhmut, and Putin had to empty out a prison or two to do it. Of late, his finest soldiers have been convicts, and they generally take a bullet in the head to demonstrate their valor. The Russian casualty list has run to roughly 50,000 dead and God knows how many wounded.

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The rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, until a few weeks ago head of the Wagner private militia outfit, is a perfect specimen of the weird mediocrity that has filled the ranks of Putin’s government. Prigozhin, with Putin’s blessing, rose from being a common prisoner, to a hot dog mongerer, to the official caterer for Putin’s government. Thence he finally headed the vast private militia that is known as Wagner. Alas, he went too far. His troops rolled up the M-4 highway toward Moscow, which thanks to Putin’s negligence was practically undefended. Had Prigozhin’s militia continued up the M-4 highway, it is possible Prigozhin would be president of Russia today. But it appears that the former hot dog salesman lost his nerve, and where he will end up is anyone’s guess.

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There is almost no place in Putin’s Russia that is immune to the corruption and incompetence of the present moment. Moreover, it is going to take a long time to cleanse Russia of it. Even the Orthodox Church is crippled by corruption. With the fall of the Soviet Union, one might have thought that finally the Russian church would be free of the costs of Godless communism. Yet now I am told that a church that for decades was under the rule of the KGB apparently has continued to be corrupted by the rule of Putin’s thugs. For Mother Russia there is no place to hide.