"To be sure, an 83 percent approval rating almost certainly overstates Putin’s support. Individuals may understandably hide their true preferences from pollsters, as a culture of paranoia spreads across the country. In tandem with reports of erstwhile Putin opponents embracing the war, however, we can fairly assume that a large number of Russians, and perhaps a clear majority, are indifferent to the atrocities committed in their name. What, if anything, should we make of this? Of course, the question of evil—and why ordinary people incline toward it—is an old one, destined to repeat itself with stubborn insistence. As my podcast co-host, Damir Marusic, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, recently wrote, “Putin is a wholly authentic Russian phenomenon, and the imperialist policy he’s pursuing in Ukraine is too.” This is right, but only up to a point. We simply don’t know what individual Russians would choose, want—or become—if they had been socialized in a free, open democracy, rather than a dictatorship where fear is the air one breathes. Like everyone else, they are products of their environment. Authoritarianism corrupts society. Because punishment and reward are made into arbitrary instruments of the state, citizens have little incentive to pool resources, cooperate, or trust others. Survival is paramount, and survival requires putting one’s own interests above everything else, including traditional morality. In such a context, as the historian Timothy Snyder puts it, “life is nasty, brutish, and short; the pleasure of life is that it can be made nastier, more brutish, and shorter for others.” This is the zero-sum mindset that transforms cruelty into virtue."