Are We Witnessing the Birth of Putin the Ethnonationalist?

I predicted this.

Things must be getting really bad for Putin to be dipping his toes, however tentatively, into ethnonationalism. I don’t think that this is part of a larger, clever plan. No, simply the failures have started to pile up and, when things get bad enough, people have to start looking falling back on what is actually real and tangible - on ideas that resonate with the masses and that people are willing to struggle, kill and die for.