"The attempt at curbing Russia has failed."

Everything is fine, and Donald Trump is definitely not a daft mark who doesn't understand how he's been played like a fiddle by Russia:

Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia has developed and is testing a new line of strategic, nuclear-capable weapons that would be able to outmanoeuvre US defences, suggesting a new arms race between Moscow and the west.

Speaking in a nationally televised address to the country's political elite weeks before a presidential election, the president showed video and animations of ICBMs, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, underwater drones and other weapons that he said Russia had developed as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union.

"You didn't listen to our country then," Putin said during the speech on Thursday. "Listen to us now." Some of the weapons were already being tested, he added.

The existence of several of the weapons systems, like the RS-28 Sarmat or Satan 2, nuclear missile, were well-known and their tests had been previously reported. What was new was Putin's portrayal of Russia's modernising arsenal as an adversarial response to US policy since 2001.

The speech came in the same month that the Pentagon released a new nuclear arms policy, which followed on from a promise by the US president, Donald Trump, to develop an arsenal "so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression." The policy envisioned low-yield nuclear weapons on submarine-launched ballistic missiles that could match similar Russian weapons.

Putin issued a message of defiance. "I would like to tell those who have been trying to escalate the arms race for the past 15 years, to gain unilateral advantages over Russia, and to impose restrictions and sanctions ... The attempt at curbing Russia has failed," he said.

His remarks came during a state of the union speech heavy with economic promises for the Russian people and sabre-rattling against the US.

Everything is not fine.

I don't know what I can say that I haven't already said countless times over the last couple of years, even well before Donald Trump was installed as president: Hillary Clinton was the best person to lead the United States in a time of resurgent Russian threats.

Not just the better of two people, the other of whom probably colluded with Russia to defeat her, but the best person in the nation to stand up to Putin.

And, frankly, I'm backdating that assertion to 2007.

Hillary Clinton has always had Putin's number, and she's never been afraid to handle him without the kid gloves. There are precious few people about whom the same can be said around the world. We kept not choosing her, and he kept getting stronger. And here we are.