The U.S. does not have perfect control over the rest of the world or other countries, but assuming we all live through this, we must prioritize getting a country with roughly 4,500 nuclear warheads to not be run by just one man with an iron fist. While the Russian constitution does include an impeachment mechanism, right now there’s no realistic way for the Federal Assembly to remove Vladimir Putin. While we would all love for a palace coup to remove Putin from power and bring the crisis to a halt, at this point there is little sign of it happening. (Putin’s advisors can barely get close enough to throw something at him, much less assassinate him.) Modern Russia obeys the will of one man, and one man alone. Some may be hoping for a military coup, but if Russian military leaders are willing to send in troops with little or no intelligence, lie to soldiers’ families, shell innocent civilians in cities, and serve their own troops long-expired food rations, they do not seem like the type of men willing to turn on Putin or put the country’s interests first.

Judging from the assessment of “half a dozen western intelligence officials speaking to the Financial Times,” there is an excellent chance that Russia’s intelligence chiefs are afraid to tell Putin things he doesn’t want to hear, or Putin simply disregards anything he doesn’t want to hear. A man who may or may not be sane is leading his country into an increasingly violent and brutal war, and it is entirely possible he’s only getting the rose-colored glasses assessment — or he’s only believing the good news he is told, and doesn’t believe any bad news he is told.

Heaven help us.