Mr. Putin is not “the chess master and outmaneuvering the West and outmaneuvering Mr Obama and this and that and the other.”
Instead, Putin’s policies and the stringent economic sanctions they had prompted against Russia by the West had led to a “huge economic contraction” Obama said in an interview.

“Right now, he’s presiding over the collapse of his currency, a major financial crisis and a huge economic contraction,” Obama told CNN‘s “State of the Union” program.
“That doesn’t sound like somebody who has rolled me or the United States of America.”