By Leonid Ragozin in Riga February is the new August in Russia. Ever since the 1991 coup that ended Soviet communism August was reputed to be the month of black swans that changed the course of Russian history. But this breed of birds changed its seasonal migration patterns in February 2014 when Putin ordered his troops to occupy Crimea in the aftermath of Ukraine’s Maidan revolution. Eight years later, in February 2024, he would double down by launching a full-out invasion of Ukraine. There were more black swan events in the last decade. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was killed under the wa…