Skepticism today within Official Kyiv and Official London on the Russian scaleback in ambitions. A recalibration to Dumbass only? Ukraine says she’s not seeing it on the ground; both UA and UK warn of Russian lies and disinformation—which does sound more like the Russia we know and loathe.

Speaking of, Putin and Lavrov, and some Western scientists see in the breadth and depth of sanctions a result where all Russian contributions to the arts and literature, to music and science, are erased. In my own view the world would miss the next Tolstoy, the next Tchaikovsky, the next Sakharov, the next Yuri Gagarin but I believe that one needs look at the character of the people of a civilization as a whole and there is, in my view, no doubt that as the United States would have been improved if the Confederate States had seceded, that humanity will be elevated if and when the entire anthropoidal influence, and the antrophoids themselves, are--not exterminated--but contained within their boundaries and ignored.