Putin looms over a third successive US election

“Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Ex-President Donald Trump’s scathing catch phrase for a torrent of investigations during his administration also serves as an apt catch-all for the current meltdown over Moscow roiling US politics.

The United States might have beaten the Kremlin in the Cold War and ever since regarded Moscow as a mere irritant — albeit one with nuclear arms — and have been desperate to concentrate on the showdown with its new superpower rival, China.

But Russia and its leader, whom President Joe Biden described as a “crazy S.O.B.” at a Wednesday fundraiser, won’t go away.

President Vladimir Putin has trained the malevolence of his intelligence agencies, his military power, global diplomacy and obstructive statecraft into a multi-front assault on American power in the United States and abroad.

He has carved out baleful influence at the center of US politics in an extraordinary display of an adversary penetrating and exploiting American political divides. The ex-KGB lieutenant colonel, who conceived a grievance after watching the Soviet Union dissolve from his outpost in East Germany, has sparked chaos in a single-minded effort to discredit and weaken the United States. Successive US presidents have underestimated Russia, misread its historic humiliations and struggled to work out how to change Putin’s course and contain his threat.

Western observers often point out that Putin’s leadership has been a disaster for Russia. As oligarchs plundered natural resources, Russians were hammered by international sanctions, democracy was crushed and thousands of soldiers perished in his wars.

But Putin has been remarkably resilient following earlier signs that his invasion of Ukraine – nearly two years ago – was a disaster and could…