I've been to Russia four times, speak fractured conversational Russian and married a Russian-Latvian in Riga. Russian history doesn't inspire optimism about prospects for a radical pivot.

Russians will soon learn to ask Germans about postwar self-examination, reparations and accountability. Hope that they don't ask the Austrians and Japanese.

How a postwar Russia can build a nation of citizens and not serfs while abandoning Catherine the Great's "to defend my borders I must expand them" strategy is an open question.

Power in Russia purely occupative, as the Prussian courtesan showed. Legitimacy is acquired by exercising power, not vice versa. Ordinary Russians have never succeeded in holding their torturers accountable. The Russians I met in St Petersburg, including an English-speaking university professor I rented a room from, tended to say, "I hate Putin, but I'm utterly terrified of what comes afterwards." They fear disorder more than oppression.

I don't forecast Putin being the first exception to the non-accountability rule.

Hopefully Russia surprises me.