Charles Maines

And it's true, despite wave after wave of Western sanctions, Russia's economy has performed far better than anyone predicted.

Even amid more recent signs of mounting economic troubles, Politaev insists Russians can adapt because they always have.

Yet there's a growing sense that amid a conflict with no immediate end in sight, the state's need for control, too, knows no bounds.

Last fall, the arrest of musicians from the band Stop Time over their performance of anti-war cover songs on the streets of St.

Petersburg made global headlines.

In court, the group's singer, 18-year-old Diana Loganova, who goes by the stage name Naoka, said they were just playing songs they like to a public that wants to hear them.

She and another band member have since fled the country, but the case has served as a reminder.

Wartime censorship laws dictate what Russians can hear, watch, read, and share.

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.