You must remember that Russia’s game is chess, whereas the US games are football and poker. Fortunately, it appears that Putin’s chess abilities are a bit overrated. (British understatement) Chess requires intense concentration on the thinking patterns of one opponent, and the specific options of the pieces and the board. Football requires large scale cooperation among a number of unpredictibly mobile players. This is not an activity for people disciplined by a tyranny. Poker requires assessing the behavior and visible and conjectured assets of several other players, plus the chance luck of the cards. Also not a game suited to the thinking patterns of tyrants and their minions who may need to make independent decisions.
Why bother “reading people’s actions” when your expectation is they will do what you want or be eliminated?