India, Jan. 11 -- By comparison, almost four years earlier and thousands of miles away, Russia's President Vladimir Putin had seen his own ambitious plan to remove a foreign head of state crumble as Ukraine's defences held firm. Putin had planned to install his close friend, Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, as Ukraine's new president after a campaign lasting no more than a few days. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter, Daryna. Despite an invasion launched with force and hubris in February 2022, Russia never succeeded in capturing or killing Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, whose survival has become one of the defining narratives of the war.

Call it Gunboat Diplomacy or Yankee Imperialism, it was an extraordinary achievemen...