Today marks six months since Russia launched a full-scale, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine—and there are no signs of the war ending anytime soon. “After the initial shock—and the initial spate of anti-war protests—the country seems to have rallied around its president and his ill-begotten war,” Julia Ioffe writes. “Little by little after some Western reaction and some irrational behaviors—some friends can’t find a place to rent in Italy because they have Russian roots—many Russians who were far from Putinists are now becoming anti-Western,” a European friend living in Moscow told Julia. And these people, she added, are Western-educated Russians. At the link in bio, Julia reports on Putin’s rising approval ratings in the motherland. Photo by Contributor/Getty Images