In 2008, Vladimir Putin's troops invaded neighboring Georgia and seized control of two regions. That chilled Russia's relations with the United States.

But not for long.

The following year, President Obama announced a "reset" of Washington's relations with Moscow.

"The United States and Russia have more in common than they have differences," Mr. Obama said. "We want to work with Russia on issues of common concern."

Where did that lead?

In 2014, Mr. Putin's troops invaded and then annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and ignited an insurgency in Ukraine's Donbas region.

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First, President Trump muscled Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting, without security guarantees or other preconditions, a 30-day ceasefire in the brutal war that Vladimir Putin has been waging against Ukraine for more than three years.

Next, President Trump sent a message asking Mr. Putin if he was willing to do the same.

"We agree with the proposal to cease hostilities," the Russian ruler said at a Moscow press conference last week. "But we have to bear in mind that this ceasefire must be aimed at a long-lasting peace, and it must look at the root causes of the crisis."

Allow me to translate: He said no.

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Cast your mind back to September 6, 2019, when presidential candidate Joe Biden, campaigning in New Hampshire, took the hand of a 24-year-old activist. "Kiddo," he said, "look in my eyes. I guarantee you. I guarantee you. We're going to end fossil fuel!"

Mission unaccomplished.

But did President Biden's policies – including hugely expensive subsidies and mandates – hasten a revolutionary and inevitable "energy transition"?

According to the elite media, absolutely!

To take but one example: An essay by two Oxford professors in the Wall Street Journal late last month was headlined: "The Clean Energy Revolution Is Unstoppable!"

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Vladimir Putin doesn't drink much but I bet he poured himself a glass of Rossiyskoye Shampanskoye (faux Champagne, made in Russia) after watching relations between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump melt down last Friday.

In the U.S., much of the commentary that followed the imbroglio in the Oval was reflexively partisan.

Those who have long despised the Ukrainian president – the Tucker Carlson wing of the GOP – gleefully reviled him as "disrespectful."

Some of those who can't abide the American president – including Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans – regurgitated debunked Russia collusion allegations and called POTUS "Putin's lapdog."

Both factions have lost the plot.

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Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Is the same true of Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia with an increasingly tight fist since 1999?

I don't think so.

Early in his tenure, he waged a ferocious war against separatists in Chechnya. Russian forces razed Grozny, the capital, and killed as many as 100,000 Chechens in this small Muslim land first conquered by Russian imperialists in the Caucasian War of the 19^th century.

President Clinton had threatened that Russia would "pay a heavy price" for its brutality. But no bill collectors ever came knocking on Mr. Putin's door.

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