According to CIA Director William Burns who spoke yesterday in front of House Select Intelligence Committee, Putin premised his war on four false assumptions:

• he thought Ukraine was weak;
• he believed Europe was distracted and wouldn't mount a strong response;
• he thought Russia's economy was prepared to withstand sanctions;
• he believed Russia's military had been modernized and would fight effectively.

Everything turned out to be wrong. What’s more disturbing, Burns said that now Putin will double down on Ukraine because this case is a matter of “personal conviction” for him.

Burns knows Putin personally.

Bank of Russia’s Head Elvira Nabiullina wants out and rightfully so.

Contrary to Russian folk conspiracy, Nabiullina is a great professional. Her actions in 2014 after Crimea were questionable, but other than that she has been very good.

Everything she and many others in Russian public administration and business were working on for decades has been destroyed in one day – for nothing.

Putin is impossible to work with since that bunker stuff started.

For those who think that the current crisis will reshape Russia for better - guys, come on. The disaster is only getting started.

The fact that gasoline is getting more expensive in the US and Europe will bring you joy for a couple of days. Then what?

So, Kyiv government is not a band of junkies and neo-Nazis anymore? Or Moscow's morale is getting so low that it is ready to communicate with drug-addicts?

We're reminding you, that a week ago Putin addressed Ukrainian Army and asked its officers to take out Zelensky and hold direct talks with Kremlin. Now it's not the option, ok.

Looks like Russia has to stop the war immediately, every other day will make the future terms worse for the country and its people.

Russia has banned foreign currency sales for six months. No more cash in dollars and euros available for Russians, cannot buy it.

Internal sanctions are usually more sever than external, this is the case. Nabiullina is assessing the situation as a disaster.

This is either a panic move or desperation. It didn’t take long. Now there is a black market of dollars and euros in Russia which will be controlled by siloviks.

Meanwhile there are reports about Russian elites taking foreign currency out of the country through airport green zones.

Billionaire Alisher Usmanov's successful negotiations with the U.S. Treasury could possibly open the way for other Putin's oligarchs to come to terms with the U.S. government as well.

Usmanov was excluded from the sanctions list by a special license.

According to Bellingcat's Christo Groziev, several Russian bilionaires are already playing for the other team.

Russia's Defence ministry finally acknowledged that Russian conscripts are in Ukraine.

President Putin denied this on various occasions, saying only professional soldiers and officers had been sent in.

Now Putin had ordered military prosecutors to investigate and punish the officials responsible for disobeying his instructions to exclude conscripts from the operation.

This is an order to punish Sergei Shoigu. Now we know who will be held responsible for Ukrainian failure by Putin.

This is getting more and more interesting day by day. Maybe they will drown together.

Kremlin used Beslan massacre in 2004 to eliminate direct elections of governors in Russia. Now it is using war in Ukraine to rip the future opposition of any possibilities to influence the process of elections through election commissions.

Nazarbayev passed all kinds of bills and laws. We are just saying.

Britain had imposed asset freezes on seven Russian businessmen: Roman Abramovich, Igor Sechin, Oleg Deripaska, Andrey Kostin, Alexei Miller, Nikolai Tokarev and Dmitri Lebedev.

Abramovich won’t be able to sell Chelsea now. Trying to save his other assets, he promised to donate all the money from a potential Chelsea deal to a fund for Ukranians.

Hasn’t worked out.

He said that with a straight face. These people really have to go.

We were so amazed with Lavrov that forgot to give a translation of his statement: "Russia hasn't attacked Ukraine". Oh well.

According to Christo Grozev, FSB is recruiting young people whose job is to scour comments under social media posts for ''extremist'' statements. Starting salary is $500. ''Creating the world's biggest network of snitches''.

Christo is not exactly correct: the network of snitches in Russia has been created a long time ago. Now it is just recruiting new people.

Holding on in his office is the most important issue for Putin now, when he got trapped in Ukraine.

Institute for the Study of War: The Kremlin has set informational conditions to blame Ukraine for a Russian-conducted or Russian-fabricated chemical or radiological false-flag attack against civilians as a pretext for further Russian escalation.

There shouldn’t be second Putin in a nuclear power. Ever.

Russian narrative about the war in Ukraine has become an act of despair.

First it was denazification, then nuclear threat. Starting from yesterday it’s about American biolabs in Ukraine. Which became dangerous only now, we guess.

It is changing day by day, as the war is getting more and more unpopular among Russians.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the sources of Politico. Looks like so far the whole world is failing to convince Putin to stop.

Russian government is considering the possibility of nationalizing the property of foreign companies exiting Russia. Vladimir Putin has supported the decision minutes ago.

Confiscation of Russian-owned state and private property in the US and EU will likely follow, but this is not even the worst part of the story.

The decision will put Russia in a rank of lawless outcasts for decades to come, which is by no means good for economy.

The decision looks emotional and makes no sense.

You cannot nationalize business models, skills and competence, management and technologies. Kremlin’s management will simply destroy most of these businesses.

This is bad news for the Russian employees of Western companies who hoped they will return.

According to the Kremlin insiders of journalist Mikhail Zygar, Vladimir Putin has isolated himself and isn't approachable even for the top-officials.

He allegedly spent almost six months in 2020 in Valdai with one of his closest friends, billionaire Yury Kovalchuk, who is obsessed with conspiracy theories about America and Orthodox mystics.

Russian history is pretty much "the same old story". Nicholas II also had his Rasputin.

We were just saying.

Vladimir Putin gave today the green light to bring in thousands of fighters from the Middle East to fight against Ukraine.

At the same time, British PM Johnson warned that British soldiers who go AWOL in order to fight the Russians in Ukraine will be court martialled when they return.

Russian position looks more and more desperate. One mistake after another, as if the country hasn’t been demonized enough.

If 20 years ago somebody told us that Russian president would want bring in Arabs and Iranians to fight against Ukraine, we would’ve laughed hysterically.

Looks like Russian army is facing serious difficulties, if the assistance of Hizballa and Shabeeha is needed.

Institute for the Study of War: A new Russian invasion from western Belarus, with or without Belarusian ground forces’ support, appears increasingly unlikely.

If Lukashenko gets out of this, he would go down in the history as an ultimate opportunist.

It’s painful to listen to Mr.Putin. In all seriousness, he is a danger to every Russian.

“USSR always lived under sanctions and was successful”.

Then it collapsed.