Vladimir Putin is a man who loves his toys. He’s never happier than when blasting away with his Kalashnikov Chukavin sniper rifle, chasing cranes on a motorized hang-glider, “hunting” endangered Siberian tigers with a tranquilizer gun, scuba diving for ancient relics in the Black Sea or, of course, cruising on his three-wheeled Harley Davidson with his biker gang, the Night Wolves.
Even so, the world was taken aback by his gumption last March, when the Russian president announced a host of new superweapons, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile with essentially endless range; hypersonic glide missiles able to evade any ground-based defense; a nuclear-armed torpedo; and a laser-weapon array, the Peresvet, named after a warrior-monk who drove the Mongols out of Russia in the 14th century.
