Pretty much what I said above: Putin has set this up carefully, so he will become the Russia God Head. Which will give him completely unchecked, Czarist powers. Which will make a large portion of the Russian population much more confident and happy. They like a strong ruler, and being ruled.

The issue is what happens when Putin CAN take the gloves off in China, Afghanistan, Syria, North Africa, and fully embrace Russia's clandestine relationship with North Korea.

He basically owns the US now, and we are completely de-fanged and ineffectual. His friends in the EU made sure to label the US as a global COVID pariah (rightfully so, I might add), but that frees him up to focus on the Korean Peninsula, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the other Chinese fronts, where he can wage a similar proxy war against his sole remaining rival in the world, China.

It's hard to work INSIDE of China, due to their complete stranglehold on everything within their borders. So he has to work around the edges to keep them busy with border chaos. Hong Kong and S Korea are key elements in that plan, and are ripe for a US-like disinformation campaign based on social media and creating fictional agitators/groups to stir things up. They've already been at it for a couple of years, so have mature accounts and profiles already seeded into the primary info hubs and "influencers" to spread the viral info.

Finally, read up on Macau. It's gonna be the next spot for news.

This is where the Russian oligarchs and Chinese nouveau riche can spend and live profligately, while rubbing shoulders and finding common business interests. This is where Russia gets into the social machinery of China's elite, without having to deal with the Communist Party.

Personally, I expect Putin to come to some sort of deal with China (like he did with the US) around Huawei and 5G... and in return, getting access to some of the security backdoors Huawei has engineered into the platform. Expect to see an announcement of Russia awarding an all-Russia 5G contract to Huawei probably late this year. That will mean they have negotiated access to some of the security backdoors, in exchange for a large sum of money to bring 5G across Russia.

And those backdoors will work ANYWHERE in the world that Huawei hardware gets installed. Which is all of Africa, South America, Canada, and probably most of Asia.

It's all coming up roses for Putin, thanks to Trump's abdication of all responsibility.