Over the weekend, while processing the Ukrainian army's big breakthrough in the Russian army's

headlong retreat, I came across a tweet that said this.

On Russian state TV, Moscow State University professor Vitali Tretyakov said, and I'm paraphrasing,

The West thinks there will be social unrest in Russia in order to make the war stop.

In reality, there will be social unrest if we in order to make the war stop. In reality, there will

be social unrest if we don't become more active in this war. Is Tretjakov right? Is there more

political pressure on Putin to ratchet up his military campaign in Ukraine than to ratchet it down?

Does that explain Sunday's missile strikes? Launched after that tweet, against Ukrainian power plants?

Were those strikes a concession to the hardcore nationalist Russians who have long been saying

Vladimir Putin should take the gloves off in Ukraine?

One of them tweeted about the strikes, six months late, but better than never.

And could this political dynamic, combined with continued Ukrainian success in the battlefield,

lead Putin to call a general mobilization, which, by hugely expanding Russia's armed forces,

would reverse the manpower advantage now enjoyed by Ukraine?

I have no idea what the answers to these questions are.

One reason for my ignorance is that I get

most of my information about the war from American media. Though the political forces shaping

Vladimir Putin's handling of this war would seem to be one of the most important subjects in the

world, it's a subject our finest journalistic outlets have spent the war almost completely ignoring.

This is starting to change.

How Putin reacts to Russia's humiliating battlefield setback is a question of such obvious importance that his political incentive structure is starting to get some attention on U.S. media.

Will the result be illuminating? So illuminating that it helps Americans think more clearly about

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