However, this whole affair cost Putin something much dearer than money: his aura of invincibility. Humiliation is his currency—he uses it to get what he wants and to put people in their place. In his mind, he hasn’t succeeded until his opponent has failed, and he can’t be happy until his opponent is miserable. In Putin’s world, the humiliator cannot, under any circumstances, become the humiliatee. Yet this is precisely what happened in the wake of the adoption ban.
