Military defeat is a deadly trial for any dictatorship. Mussolini was voted out by his own Grand Council and arrested on July 25, 1943. In Germany, the same reckoning was postponed by almost two years. Everyone paid for that delay in blood. The pattern is that the system saves itself and sacrifices the leader when he becomes too expensive. This logic is now closing in on Vladimir Putin. JOIN US ON TELEGRAM Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . He did not design the Chekist