He's not stupid - he's damned smart. He's in a position to cut loose of the US dollar, and into an arrangement with China and others (BRICS?), he's close to having a stand-alone internet similar to China, and his little "operation" may be on the cusp of exposing some very, very ugly secrets the West has been keeping. He may have misjudged how this would all go, but he may have upset our apple cart in his failure.Old Putin is anything but stupid. Not trying to pay him a compliment but nobody stays in power that long and is stupid.