Long term outlook for Russia is now bleak, but it had been making major Geo-Political advances

This is pure speculation of course, but it makes me think that Putin really may be battling cancer, which could mean in his mind that he was running out of time to leave his mark on history. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, more so than not, events had been breaking Putin's way. The UK left the EU. Relations among NATO allies were frayed, and even though Biden had been making all the right moves to undo Trump's damage, our allies were looking over his shoulder at what might happen next should Trump regain the presidency. The U.S. was no longer thought of in the same way as a long term dependable ally. Our Republican party has gone off the rails, possibly for all time. American media empires, not limited to FOX, had become increasingly reliable mouthpieces for Russian propaganda.

Authoritarian leaning right wing parties and even governments were on the rise in Europe. German dependency on Russia for natural gas was about to be locked in for another decade with the imminent opening of a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that bypassed transit through Ukraine. Ties between Russia and China have grown stronger than they have been in many decades, and China is an emerging super power to rival the U.S. Collectively that all represented a huge amount of progress for Putin's Geo-Political agenda. He largely had gotten away with a belligerent military strategy that expanded Russia's international military presence through aggressive, but incremental, advances. His full scale invasion of Ukraine now was a huge gamble that put most of those gains at significant risk. Now Russia is cut off from most international investments and new technology. That gas pipeline has been shelved and is unlikely to ever open while Putin remains in power. The push for a transition away from fossil fuel, Russia's bread and butter, has gotten a major boost which will hurt Russia in coming years. Putin's allies in Europe and America have been forced onto the defensive. NATO is strengthening and possibly growing as countries like Sweden and Finland reconsider becoming a part of it.

Has the timing and hence course of history in large part been determined by one man's sense of impending mortality?