Russia’s president declared this recession will not stand.

Like a comic-book villain — melodramatic and delusional — Vladimir Putin seems convinced saying something makes it true.

But the out-of-control inflation he wishes away doesn’t answer to bluster: It empties stores and strains family budgets.

Putin’s superpowers are as real as those of the state he runs.

Moscow’s impotence is visible to anyone willing to look.

After eleven years of an aggressive campaign against a neighboring country a quarter its size, Russia now controls even less Ukrainian territory than it did in 2022. Its most recent strategy, which involves causing fear among civilians, can only be described as a tyrant’s outburst.

Each dawn brings killer drones and missiles aimed not at Ukraine’s military targets but at apartment buildings, playgrounds, maternity wards.

In Kherson, a Russian drone operator killed 1-year-old Dmytryk in his grandmother’s yard.

This is not an isolated event — the United Nations had been probing these “human safari” assaults as potential crimes against humanity long before the chilling murder of a young child captured global attention.

Russia’s campaign to punish Ukraine for daring to exist is the flailing of a bully, full of rage, devoid of strength.

As Russia continues its arduous effort to dominate, it relies increasingly on intimidation. However, each attack only strengthens Kyiv’s determination, as Ukrainians understand that giving in to Russian demands won’t end their ordeal; it will only increase it.

Some will say: Ukraine stands because we’re helping. But how much are we really? A drip of aid here, a shipment of munitions there — delayed, debated, diluted.

All told, America has spent less than 1% of its federal budget to help the bravest people on Earth defend themselves.

If that fainthearted stream has kept Russia’s army at bay, it doesn’t prove our strength — it demonstrates Moscow’s weakness.

Russia thinks it’s a superpower, but a superpower wouldn’t stall out because someone across the ocean is struggling to help Kyiv while making sure Moscow can save face.

What keeps Ukraine alive is not our help; it’s a people who know what they’re fighting for, facing a brutal colonizer that doesn’t.

Russia’s even run out of basic food staples.

Potatoes are a luxury. Prices have almost tripled in a year, and families are forced to ration.

It’s not a silly grocery-store problem — it’s a window into an economy on the brink, strained by a criminal war of choice, sanctions and decades of embezzlement.

Moscow launched an invasion it thought would be over in days: Soldiers packed parade uniforms and food rations for a week.

But Ukraine refused to surrender, and it all went horribly wrong for Putin.

In failing to win quickly, Russia did more than lose momentum — it lost autonomy. It now takes orders from Beijing. Bloomberg reports 92% of the foreign components found in Russia’s killer drones are of Chinese origin.

On nuclear weapons, Xi Jinping — the “daddy,” to use NATO chief Mark Rutte’s word — made himself abundantly clear: Their use is off the table.

Russia may bluster and threaten, but the decision is no longer Moscow’s to make. The credibility of Russia’s nuclear threat lies in the eyes of the beholder — us. 

A superpower doesn’t beg North Korea for artillery shells and Iran for drone technology.

Moscow is reduced to knocking on the doors of pariah states that once depended on it.

Russia racked up more than a million casualties trying to recolonize Ukraine.

But fear not — the Kremlin has a magic trick up its bloodstained sleeve. Just as it outlaws recessions, it solves its demographic crisis by simply stopping the release of monthly population data.

What about Russia’s storied soft power — its grand ideology, rich heritage and claim to virtue?

Moscow has skillfully exploited Western culture wars, positioning itself as the defender of traditional values to Americans fed up with woke politics. It’s a façade.

Russia has one of the world’s highest divorce rates — 60% higher than the United States’.

Its abortion rate is more than twice that of Ukraine’s.

Barely 1% of the population attended Christmas services last year.

And at the center of it all sits the Russian Orthodox Church, less a religious institution than a state-security affiliate.

When Tucker Carlson mourned the fate of Ukraine’s Moscow Patriarchate, he left out two crucial details.

First, it is Russia — not Ukraine — that has damaged or destroyed more than 600 houses of worship since 2014.

And second, Ukraine isn’t banning religion; it’s evicting spies. In the middle of a war, who can blame Kyiv for trying to ensure priests are serving God, not the FSB?

The collective West accounts for roughly half of global gross domestic product. Russia makes up less than 2%. It’s no superpower — just a declining empire throwing a tantrum.

Its invasion of Ukraine is real, as are the missiles killing innocent children in their sleep.

But its foundation — economic, moral, demographic — is rotten to the core.

And the only thing more dangerous than an aggrieved dictator is a world too polite, too naïve or too afraid to confront him.

Andrew Chakhoyan is a University of Amsterdam academic director and served in the US government at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.