Most successful assassin in modern history, maybe all of history?

He killed Abe for his UC ties, and a short few years later, no more Japanese UC.

Has any other politically motivated assassination so directly, and spectacularly, achieved it’s aims?

Well, yeah.

Europe is continent sized piece of land. Russian tanks rolling into Moldova is a bit different than Poland, or Germany.

Different politically, militarily, and strategically.

Even then, I can’t see Putin biting off any more at this particular moment. Time will tell if Trump significantly eases sanctions to a degree that would enable him to speedily recapitialize.

Of course, I didn’t believe he’d actually try and take Kiev, so I’m not going to sit here and cosplay as a Kreminologist.

Yeah, no way the majority of Christians would instead opt to form schismatic sects, or simply adopt church doctrine decrying the false prophet of Brown Jesus.