Funeral Games II

Now Shoigu's private army takes the field;
Kadyrov and Prigozhin've done the same.
As Putin totters, stakes have gotten real
The warlords drill their assets for the Game.
The Muslim has no clear play on the throne;
The Patriarch insists that's his to grant.
Kadyrov must take Chechnya for his own
to safeguard his own life, where others can't.
When Alexander passed, he left no son
mature enough to take an empire's helm.
Succession's where great legacies are won;
the people starve while dukes contest the realm.
Old patterns stamped in Europe's scarlet blood
reprised in Ukraine's snow, and ice, and mud.