President Medvedev, the former leader of Russia, fetches up on social media — and in the Russian papers — this week to wish “Season greetings to you all, Anglo-Saxon friends, and their happily oinking piglets,” and therefrom he makes a number of predictions for 2023 that include an elbow-to-the-ribs reference to Ukraine in the past tense. 

This might be passed off as too much tippling save for the fact that when not tweeting, Mr. Medvedev leads Russia’s security council, and he has President Putin’s ear. So some of the former president’s prognostications are newsworthy, nonetheless.