It's almost as if it never happened. The unrivalled master of the Kremlin for 23 years has emerged from a moment of wavering with the leader of an aborted march on Moscow now sidelined and forced abroad, Russian troops on the frontlines in Ukraine who continue to hold their own and a public opinion that's either staying out of it or still squarely behind Vladimir Putin.
But how convincing will that steady diet of "us versus them" rhetoric on state television seem if the Ukrainian counteroffensive forces a call-up of more Russian conscripts? Or if drone attacks on home soil – like the new ones reported overnight – become a steady occurrence?
