- Litvinenko

- blowing up ammo storage in Czech Rep.

- Beslan school siege

- Keystone Pipeline and Freeport LNG fire

- electricity and internet cable sabotage

Kursk submarine disaster

- Invasion & Second Chechen War (1999)

- Invasion in Georgia (2008)

Yeah, it's so many, would need the Spreadsheet of Death...

transnetria

I think that was before Putin?

Plus many, many deaths of business associates, oligarchs, and generals.

We were always at war with Russia.

And I mean this in sad, sombre way. Russian imperialism has never really stopped, it just had an interregnum in the form of a drunkard President, who was promptly replaced.

In addition to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine were also invaded in 2014, and a lot of the area that was invaded then is still occupied today.

It's impossible to pinpoint this with a single event but I think russia is also an extremely negative influence on Europe, with corruption, spreading division and disinformation, and so on. Who knows how much kompromat is going around, when the war started there were lots of interesting people pushing for "peace" (i.e. Ukrainian surrender), including the pope.

- Killing of Boris Nemtsov (2015)

I'm afraid the answer is 'not having nukes'.

China is a paper tiger. They are fated to be weak due to demographics. They’re now beating Japan in the race to become the world’s largest retirement home.

They still have a pretty large economy and are building up militarily. Even so they seem less belligerent than the Russians.

At the moment. What matters more is how the coming decade unfolds.

One day it might very well be it's Russia who has to worry about China.

A technical revolution that would have:

* instantly removes the need for oil and gas * instantly protects half of the world from nukes and radiations

(if possible, that would have done this 15 years ago.)

Now, as much as everyone, I loved reading the headlines in HN that told me about the new "energy breaktrough that will change everythin" - meanwhile, in the real world, we're stuck with oil & gas, and the countries owning it are basically free to behave as they please. Understandably, they behave... badly (except for Norway, I suppose ?)

But it's good that Silicon Valley stopped caring about producing energy, and is now mostly worried about to worst spend it in VR helmets and training AIs to generate fake porn.

Given the state of "reality", it's only fitting that we deal mostly in lies and head-burying.

For the second point, I don't think there is even anything in sight, so Putin's opponents are bound to only tread carefully with Putin.

With the Republican delaying aid, Trump almost certain to get back at the WH, and the fall of Adviivka just a couple of days away - this is, in objective terms, a good time to be sitting in the Kremlin.

The only certainty, however, is that, through diplomacy, artillery, or biology, the tides will turn. Navalny probably wished he would be there to see it. Fate decided otherwise.

"To the beggar: This, too, shall pass.

To the emperor: This, too, shall pass.

This, too, shall pass."

There is still a lot of folks who also attribute the 2010 Smolensk air disaster to Putin as well.