Tyrants and dictators are accustomed to criticism, to being condemned and reviled. The cries of their victims are nothing to them. The curses and tears of families and friends whose loved ones have been taken, jailed, tortured, killed are accepted as a kind of sick, validating tribute to their power, cruelty and inhumanity.
What your average thuggish tyrant simply cannot stand is ridicule. And Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia and indicted, mass-murdering war criminal, is no exception to this unfunny rule. Putin takes himself very seriously indeed. He appears totally lacking in any sense of humour. Self-deprecation is as foreign to him as mercy is to a wolf. Yet he’s essentially absurd – a little man in too big a job.
