Opinion

The banality of Putin

Igor Bagnyuk, a lieutenant colonel in the Russian army, is not a household name. His work, at the vapidly named Main Computation Center of the General Staff, does not involve pulling triggers or torturing prisoners, only programming the flight paths of cruise missiles that, hours later, strike hospitals, schools, or apartment blocks in Ukraine. By all accounts, Bagnyuk is good at his job. Russia's president has awarded him a medal. As children across Europe and America spent Easter Monday hun