The Empire Eats Its Own

Leaked intercepts, foreign cannon fodder, and two strongmen discovering their strength was always an illusion

Somewhere deep in the Donetsk region, a Russian commander is screaming into a radio spitting fury, f-bombs, and what remains of his authority, because no one can seem to get a damn helicopter in the air. His men are dying, his orders are ignored, and his air support is probably eating lunch. It’s not war, it’s farce. And if Ukraine’s military intelligence had simply handed us the transcript, we might’ve assumed it was satire.

This is the Russian military. The mighty bear that was supposed to roll over Ukraine in a matter of days has now resorted to TikTok recruitment videos and headhunters dangling rubles at desperate foreigners. Want to fight in a frozen trench for a crumbling empire? Great! Just click here, sign this contract, and we’ll tell your family you died a hero, if we bother telling them at all.

The latest dispatches from this chaotic mess include two Chinese nationals captured by Ukrainian forces. One was a therapist, the other a firefighter. Neither had plans to die for Putin, but both were lured by glitzy social media ads, false promises of cushy gigs, and the lingering myth that Russia still deserves the trust of its supposed allies. One minute they’re scrolling Douyin, the next they’re thrown onto the front lines with a rifle and six days of "training." Surprise!

This is not a functioning military, it is a pyramid scheme with body armor.

The rot is so deep you can hear it in the intercepted calls, commanders cursing their own logistics teams, soldiers threatening deserters with suicide missions, and junior officers flat-out refusing orders. Russian troops are driving civilian trucks filled with North Koreans, eating cold Theraflu on the front lines, and sending home news that their own commanders are fleeing faster than they are. It’s not just disorganized, it’s doomed.

And yet, despite the screams echoing from the wreckage, Putin still imagines himself a wartime genius. A czar reborn. In reality, he’s lost half his competent officers, the respect of his allies, and most of the working parts of his military-industrial complex. His war has become a graveyard of illusions, staffed increasingly by the duped and the desperate.

On the other side of the collapsing authoritarian coin, we have Donald J. Trump, a man who treats the global economy like a casino slot machine and still thinks he can bluff his way through geopolitics with all-caps tweets. Trump believed he could unilaterally muscle the world into submission with tariffs, tantrums, and toadying billionaires. But the markets are learning, just as the American people are, that Trump is no economic genius, he’s a chaos bot with insider trading friends and a tendency to light the house on fire just to blame the smoke on someone else.

Like Putin, Trump surrounds himself with sycophants, mistakes bullying for leadership, and reacts to failure by doubling down on delusion. Together, they’ve built regimes held together by duct tape, lies, and the fantasy that if they shout loud enough, reality will bend to their will.

But it’s not bending. It’s breaking.

The Russian military is falling apart in real time, and the world can hear it. The American economy, battered by clownish trade policies and partisan sabotage, is blinking warning signs while Trump yells “Buy the dip!” and his allies quietly buy Tesla stock before a miraculous rebound. The strongmen are learning the hard way that bluster is not strategy, and propaganda doesn't build bridges, feed troops, or rescue economies.

Their citizens are learning, too, through hunger, fear, inflation, and, in far too many cases, death. Because when two men try to rule the world with ego alone, it’s always the rest of us who pay the price.