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Putin鈥檚 war against Ukraine aggravates tensions between various and typically disunited elite groups in Russia. They might find a common interest in promoting, with all possible caution, however, the prospect of ending it. The underachievers in their early 60s, most of whom have family ties to old Soviet nomenklatura, may have a different sense of history than Putin, who is obsessed with reasserting dominance over Ukraine, and can be wary about new 鈥渢imes of troubles.鈥� The younger 鈥渁ristocracy鈥� may have scant understanding of the war-tiredness in the general populace, but they resent the 鈥渉eroes鈥� whom Putin promotes as the 鈥渘ew elite.鈥� The only cohort that appears to be committed to Putin鈥檚 war is his shrinking circle of aging courtiers, who see the risks of staying the course as lesser than those of ending it. They live鈥攖ogether with the lonely autocrat鈥攊n the past and are deaf to the lessons of history, which have unpredictable means of punishing such ignorance.