Newsweek's journalistic integrity has dropped drastically since it was acquired by IBT Media in 2013. In 2018, former Newsweek journalist Jonathan Alter wrote in The Atlantic that since being sold to the International Business Times in 2013 the magazine had "produced some strong journalism and plenty of clickbait before becoming
a painful embarrassment to anyone who toiled there in its golden age". Former Newsweek writer Matthew Cooper criticized Newsweek for running multiple inaccurate stories in 2018,
That said, I wouldn't put it past Putin to want (and have developed plans) to use his military to solve the longstanding dispute with Japan over several of the Kuril Islands.