"Putin distrusts the West. He is sincerely flummoxed by talk about 'Western values.'... His entourage is afraid to utter a word."

"How far Putin is willing to go—that’s not known by anyone. Obviously, he is trying to realize his own conception about the structure of the world and Ukraine... I don’t have much hope for Ukraine’s negotiations with Vladimir Medinsky, our former minister of culture, who is passionate about the principle that 'truth is what is beneficial to Russia.' This is a joke... I think the plan is to divide Ukraine. With the Western part of the country, whose center is Lviv, the thinking is, Let them live as they want. Central Ukraine, with the center in Kyiv, will have the government that Putin requires, one that is oriented toward Moscow and not the West. And, as for the east, the whole Donbas will be accepted into Russia. Around eight hundred thousand people there were just given Russian passports.... Putin will never leave power of his own will.... His entourage is quite convinced that 'Without Putin, there is no Russia.' ... But the younger generations of Russians, from whom the world and the future are now being taken away, no longer believe this."

Said Dmitry Muratov, quoted in "How Russia’s Nobel-Winning Newspaper Is Covering Ukraine/'We continue to call war war,' Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Novaya Gazeta, said. 'We are waiting for the consequences'" (The New Yorker).