Commentary: Putin’s war is shattering my Russian identity

“Russia is not Putin.” As a lecturer in Russian history, and an ex-Soviet Russian American, I have said these words many times. But now the treasures of Russia’s culture — its poetry, novels, movies, theater, symphonies — must be weighed against the current regime’s premeditated murder of the innocent. In this new world, the rest of Russian history and culture is reduced to mere backstory by Feb. 24.

Start with what Ivan Turgenev called the “great, powerful, righteous and free Russian language”