Not really. Putin's favourite game/sport is judo, not chess. Judo is a game of opportunity and technique: one takes advantage of their opponent's weakness or di

Not really. Putin's favourite game/sport is judo, not chess. Judo is a game of opportunity and technique: one takes advantage of their opponent's weakness or distraction to attack. The rest is continous defense and harassement to get your opponent distracted and create opportunities for attack. He doesn't think in terms of Biden or Trump, but in terms of opportunity. You should really think of Russia as a modern feudal state where Putin shares the country's resources with the oligarchs. The only difference is that it isn't farmland, but oil and gas. He doesn't need to appease them. He can run a show trial, have them shot on a bridge, poison them, just like he did with Khodorkovsky, Litvinenko, Nemtsov, Skripal, Navalny and others. Vladimir Sorokin once said that the basis of modern Russia was set by Ivan the Terrible. https://www.publicbooks.org/dress-up-games-with-russian-history/ https://www.publicbooks.org/dress-up-games-with-russian-hist... One should read post/modern Russian literature in order to understand modern Russia. It's also very good. I love Russian literature.