On Russian TV sets, people, walls, and floors are decked out in the “Z” marking that Russian troops paint on their tanks. I saw it used to mean za pobedu (for “victory”) and za mir (for “peace”), even though that’s not how you write the letter Z in Russian. Throughout, I heard references to parts of Ukraine being “cleaned out” and “brought to order,” and that Ukrainians “will only understand the truth about their country once it’s liberated.” The penalty for dissent is great, and the talk-show guests are in constant agreement. They nevertheless frequently end up yelling, spitting twisty consonants at one another until the host introduces a new way in which the government line is correct.

On March 1, I tuned in to Perviy Kanal (Channel One), the most influential state-run channel, to find an on-the-ground report from Ukraine. It featured a woman saying in Russian, “We’ve been waiting for you for years”—as in, she’d been waiting for the Russians to invade. The reporter then interviewed Ukrainian fighters who’d supposedly given up their arms. The soldiers’ Russian captors were shown being sweet to them, giving them cigarettes and hot food and letting them call their moms. It’s impossible to know whether this was genuine or not; Russians might have been aping a viral video in which Ukrainian soldiers offered a captured Russian some tea and a phone call.