“It looks like he’s certainly listening to Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Security Council. In the footage of the Security Council meeting where they were discussing recognizing the independence of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Patrushev was pretty confident and almost telling Putin what to think. He was the one who was saying that America was using Ukraine to destabilize Russia, that our task is to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that the Ukrainians have been forced and frightened down a path of conflict … That’s where the trail seems to end for me. He’s in an echo chamber with Patrushev of where they drink their own Kool-Aid, it seems, because they will discuss this conspiracy of the West trying to use Ukraine to somehow undermine Russia’s stability. And then this has been projected back to them on state TV. So Putin turns on the TV, hears his own ideas projected back at him, and believes that he and Patrushev must be right.” Julia Ioffe with a really interesting interview of Putin expert Catherine Belton. Puck News (Gift Article): Putin vs. His Oligarchs. Consider that the sociopathic Putin may not just be evil, he may have also lost touch with reality. So how does this end?

+ “Amid all the horrors that have unfolded in the war on Ukraine, the Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was in fact far deadlier than estimated, killing closer to 600 people inside and outside the building.”