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Russia’s War in Ukraine

Understanding the conflict four years on.

On the evening of March 17, Ilya Remeslo, a 42-year-old Russian lawyer in St. Petersburg, published a manifesto to his 90,000 Telegram followers titled “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” The Russian president, he wrote, had waged a “dead-end war” against Ukraine that has already cost up to 2 million casualties (a figure exceeding even the highest independent assessments), destroyed the economy, and crushed all domestic opposition. Now, Remeslo wrote, the Kremlin’s throttling of the internet and preparations to ban the messaging app Telegram were dismantling the last remains of the infrastructure through which ordinary Russians could share their views with one another. Putin, he concluded, is no longer “a legitimate president” and must “resign and be brought to trial as a war criminal and a thief.”

Within 48 hours, Remeslo was in a psychiatric ward. The exact circumstances of his arrival there remain unclear, but loyalist media report that it was not voluntary. Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russia’s most-watched talk-show hosts, addressed the episode on air without naming him, dismissing Remeslo as “a lawyer who has lost his mind” and whose “nerves couldn’t take it.”

On the evening of March 17, Ilya Remeslo, a 42-year-old Russian lawyer in St. Petersburg, published a manifesto to his 90,000 Telegram followers titled “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” The Russian president, he wrote, had waged a “dead-end war” against Ukraine that has already cost up to 2 million casualties (a figure exceeding even the highest independent assessments), destroyed the economy, and crushed all domestic opposition. Now, Remeslo wrote, the Kremlin’s throttling of the internet and preparations to ban the messaging app Telegram were dismantling the last remains of the infrastructure through which ordinary Russians could share their views with one another. Putin, he concluded, is no longer “a legitimate president” and must “resign and be brought to trial as a war criminal and a thief.”

Within 48 hours, Remeslo was in a psychiatric ward. The exact circumstances of his arrival there remain unclear, but loyalist media report that it was not voluntary. Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russia’s most-watched talk-show hosts, addressed the episode on air without naming him, dismissing Remeslo as “a lawyer who has lost his mind” and whose “nerves couldn’t take it.”

What makes Remeslo’s outburst significant is not the substance of his complaints. Independent Russian media now published in exile have been criticizing the war along similar lines for years, and pro-war ultranationalists have been denouncing the invasion as wasteful and........

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