Defeatist about social change but largely content with their material situation, expecting young Russians change the system is futile.

It isn't the genealogy of Russia's elite that matters, but where they sit in the spider's web of Kremlin patronage.

Instead of putting their lives at risk, Russians are happy to support the war in other ways so long as they are not inconvenienced.

Nothing inside Russia or in the international community could have stopped Putin's obsession with invading Ukraine.