It's an easy journalistic shorthand to hall Putin a new tsar (I've done it myself), but what might it mean? Coronation weekend in the UK seems a fitting time to consider the pitfalls for Putinism of its pseudo-monarchic tilt.

In the second part a quickfire look at Ukraine's war of sabotage inside Russia, the incredible shrinking Victory Day parade, and the even more quickly shrinking Prigozhin.

My articles on the drone attack and sabotage campaign are in the Spectator and Sunday Times; the Meduza piece on Mediazona's research about proxy attacks is here.

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