evidence: Setting aside the immorality of such a stance, let’s consider only what it says about the Russian people’s will to pursue their own survival. Russia is headed for Armageddon, and yet most Russians, instead of sounding the alarm and doing everything possible to save their country and themselves from destruction, are either busy attending Putin’s rallies or are hiding their heads in the sand. [...] The Russian citizenry became, as many liberal oppositionists in Russia and Ukraine like to say, "zombified" — the living dead. That metaphor has been taken to a horrific extreme as wave after wave of inexperienced Russians who should not be on the front keep attacking even as Ukrainian troops mow them down. Putin has also terrified Russians, making it clear that any act of public protest will immediately lead to incarceration or worse. In the past year, the secret police has devastated the small bits of civil society — the autonomous social, political and cultural institutions that promote collective action — that had barely survived two decades of Putin’s iron rule.