In video of a meeting with Mr. Putin, Russia’s top two military chiefs looked stricken as he ordered them to place his nation’s nuclear forces into a “special mode of combat duty.”

They did. I watched that and they looked—I hadn’t thought of “stricken,” that is the perfect word—taken by surprise, shocked, duty-bound, as if they had been struck a blow. Their faces betrayed grave misgiving. There may be some serious but quiet opposition among Putin’s top advisors.