Vladimir Putin has been named Russia's "Man Of The Year" for the 15th time in a row, Interfax news agency reports.

The Russian president won by a landslide, claiming 68% of votes. The runner-up got only 4% of votes. The poll was conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation and included 1,500 respondents in 43 regions of Russia, according to Interfax.

The propaganda channel Russia Today said of the poll: "The public affirmation about Vladimir Putin's major role in the life of the country looks even more decisive considering researchers within the same poll asked who among scientists and artists was worthy of the mantle. Some 75 percent of Russians said they had no answer to this question."...

In the months leading up to the Winter Olympics in and around the port city of Sochi, the world’s gaze shifted to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The goodwill carried by the international symbol of sportsmanship evaporated quickly, however. For it was just one month after the closing ceremonies, that Russia unilaterally annexed Crimea, Ukraine’s strategically useful Black Sea peninsula.

The move was shocking in the West, but less so in Russia, where the former KGB agent’s popularity and national pride surged. Moscow contends that feeling has led ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine to fight to rejoin the Russian fold. But NATO, whose Eastern members watched Russian tanks assemble on the border, and who have seen the military’s increasingly aggressive military exercises—some of which simulated the use of nuclear weapons against them—had other opinions.

Putin’s actions, followed by fighting in eastern Ukraine, undeniably altered the geopolitical landscape. Less visible are the ripples affecting the defense, space and commercial aviation realms. But Putin’s Russia was destined to upset all those sectors significantly in 2014.

Before the year was out, NATO had directed its member nations to spend 20% of their military budgets on new equipment. France had refused to deliver a high-priced warship it was under contract to build for Russia. Eastern European nations especially felt the chill. But nations throughout the West found themselves once again in the cat-and-mouse military games with Russian forces that seemed to have faded with the end of the Cold War. Decades before.

In the space sector, Canada pulled a satellite from the launch manifest of a Soyuz rocket variant. Manufacturers began stockpiling titanium, fearing troubles in obtaining the important metal from Russian suppliers. And the U.S. moved to develop a big new rocket engine to replace a Russian powerplant used on vehicles that launch military and intelligence satellites.

In commercial aviation, Malaysia had one it its airliners shot out of the sky. The Netherlands lost hundreds of its citizens. Airlines around the world lost confidence in the intelligence they receive regarding the safety of overflights. And individual air carriers became political weapons.

In 2014, no other person has had such a sweeping impact on aerospace and aviation—for better or worse. And for all but the most cynical of observers, Putin’s far-reaching impact has definitely been for the worse. Because of this, he is the 2014 Person of the Year...

To allay fears in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, Baltic Air Policing (BAP) fighter detachments have been tripled. NATO aircraft are now also based at Amari in Estonia as well as at the usual air-policing base at Siauliai, Lithuania.

Eastern European fighters have been scrambled hundreds of times to intercept Russian aircraft operating in Baltic airspace. In just one day in early December, BAP fighters intercepted 28 Russian aircraft, which were apparently a part of a large naval exercise....