Russia’s war on Ukraine is now in its second year. Hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians are dead. Millions more have fled both countries. Ukraine is in ruins. It will take tens of billions of dollars to rebuild the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin bears unique responsibility. Accountability may be improbable given Putin’s stranglehold on power, but Putin is afraid. The reason why Putin makes dissent by his one-time allies a capital offense is that he knows that the motivation for their criticism may be less sincere opposition to the Ukraine war and more an attempt to signal that they could be reasonable alternatives to Putin.