has a doctorate in politics from Oxford - according to her bio on Wikkepedia. So from this, certainly knows how to structure arguments and this one is that Putin's leadership is the cause for Russia's tanking economy...
Such a tanking economy could just as easily be explained by Russia's falling oil prices which others would argue have been manipulated not only by the US but by the US ally Saudi Arabia.
Maddow also knows that the Russian 'invasion' of Crimea could have been predicted by the (Western) orchestrated rightwing coup that ushered in a government unfriendly to Russia in the months before the invasion. Any Russian leader (other than a US puppet) would have behaved the same.
Finally Maddow's argument that Russia's international relations are failing....The 'rest of the world' as Maddow refers to it does not include the countries of Latin America nor China. Putin still has positive relations with many European diplomats (Schroeder, Chirac, Berlusconi)....Russia is an active player in the United Nations and enjoys many committee memberships. Russian membership in the G7 (world's leaders of industrialized nations met for the first time in 17years w/o Russia this year) may have declined due to pressure from the US but Russian international relations are diverse - it has turned its memberships to Brazil, India, China and South Africa.
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