Charles Maines

They impact everyone.

Putin made a huge strategic mistake with this war, says Viktor Yerofeyev, one of Russia's leading contemporary writers, and now among the ranks of hundreds of thousands of Russians living in exile.

These days, Yerefeyev often writes about what went wrong in his homeland, what he and others could have done differently.

Why do I write these things?

Because I feel guilty, too, that I could have done more.

These are dark times, argues Yerefeyev.

Russia may be stuck in an endless war in Ukraine, but its might makes right worldview.

What Yerefeyev calls barbarism is on the march everywhere, including the U.S.,

Today, America's future is as unpredictable as Russia's, warns Yerofeyev, adding one key difference.

Russians, he says, we're used to it.

In a telegram published to the Kremlin website, Putin called the U.S.

and Israel's targeting of Khamenei a cynical violation of human morality and international law.

Putin said Khamenei would be remembered as a skillful leader who helped bring Russian-Iranian relations to new levels of cooperation.

Iran was key to helping Russia develop its domestic drone program after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last

and last year the two sides signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

Yet Moscow's offered little beyond verbal criticism of U.S.-Israeli actions thus far, a tacit admission, analysts say, of the limits of Russian military resources more than four years into its war in Ukraine.

Charles Baines, NPR News, Moscow.

President Trump returned to office, vowing he could leverage his relations in Moscow and Kiev to resolve the conflict in short order.

Yet months of U.S.-led negotiations have bogged down over Russian demands for additional Ukrainian territory its forces do not hold and Ukraine's need for U.S.-backed security guarantees that Washington is yet to offer.

The Kremlin says its military will simply take what diplomacy doesn't deliver, despite Russian forces going up against overstretched Ukrainian defense's