Do they know?

Do they know that the democracies of the world have found a unique solidarity in their efforts to stop this war of aggression?

They know.

They may not know the full extent of Putin’s folly and the world’s reaction to it, but they know their country has become a pariah in the community of nations. They know that they are going to suffer in blood and treasure for this naked aggression that the Russian media is forbidden to call “war.”

They know that Russian celebrities, opera singers and Bolshoi dancers have shouted “No to war!” They know that Echo Moscow and TV Rain have disappeared from the air. They know that a Channel One (state news channel) producer risked her freedom to declare on air that “this broadcast is lying to you. Don’t believe their propaganda!”

They know when they hear from their brothers and sisters and cousins and grandparents in Ukraine, and they fear for them. They know when their sons text them from the front that Ukrainians are killing Russians when they were supposed to welcome them with arms wide open.

And they know to fear the worst when those texts stop coming. They know they can’t expect a chaplain at their door to break the news. Russia doesn’t repatriate the remains of their dead, and some mothers will never be told the truth. They don’t have to be told; they know.

They know that the ruble has lost half its value, and grocery store shelves are getting bare. They know, and they are very worried.

They know they can find truth if they want it. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is showing the carnage in Ukraine on multiple social media platforms, and it’s still possible to message friends in the West via Facebook even though it’s supposed to be shut down. Russia’s only English-language newspaper, The Moscow Times, publishes the truth and it’s available all over the country ... if they want to know.

They know even if they will never admit that they know. They will even berate those who have the courage to say it out loud, the ones who face down the thugs and carve “No War!” in the ice of the canals of St. Petersburg. They will even fill a stadium to cheer Putin’s claims in an image ever-so-reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s obeisance to Hitler. But they know.

Those who grew up in the Soviet period learned at their mother’s knee how to know something they could never acknowledge to another soul. They knew when a neighbor disappeared in the night. They knew when a colleague slipped “samizdat” (an unauthorized manuscript or censored document) into his bag. They knew when their sons’ lips grew too loose over vodka at midnight.

They knew but they could never show in any way that they knew. They couldn’t acknowledge even to their own family that they knew. One of the most celebrated heroes of the Soviet Union was a 13-year-old boy named Pavel who told his teacher what he’d heard his father whisper at the kitchen table long after his parents thought he was asleep. His father was killed, but Pavel was a hero for telling their secret — an orphan hero.

They had to “unknow” what they knew — and they got very good at it.

Today they’re “unknowing” this war. They have to. To acknowledge it would drive them mad.

Michelle Carter is the former managing editor of the San Mateo Times. Throughout 1995, she traveled across the 11 time zones of the world’s largest country as the U.S. Information Agency’s Journalist-in-Residence in Russia. She is the author of two books, “From Under the Russian Snow” (Bedazzled Ink Publishers, 2017) and “Children of Chernobyl: Raising Hope From the Ashes” (Augsburg, 1993).