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Vladimir Putin has pulled off a mini-coup in the White House, driven a painful wedge into the European Union, and is repairing his reputation as an indicted war criminal – all in one phone call.
In a couple of weeks, he will get the red-carpet treatment again, this time as a guest of Hungary’s Victor Orban, a leading light of the wannabe dictator club, to hold meetings with Donald Trump, no fan of democratic institutions himself.
He will swagger into Europe untroubled by the International Criminal Court indictments against him for war crimes in Ukraine, and as he stands gazing at Budapest’s
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