This is analogy is an over-vilification of the Russian people, but I do think it helps bring the intricacies of this into perspective:
Imagine there's one big bully in a schoolyard playground, alongside the one kid who is singled out. All the other kids (freely) choose to follow the bullies' lead and, at the very best, join in by ostracizing the victim. Who is in the wrong in that scenario?
The best thing Russian people can do is render Putin the king of an empty kingdom, and that was always the solution. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands, to millions and tens of millions of people (depending on where the poverty line is in Russia) for who that isn't an option. Equally so, those people wouldn't have been able to lift Putin's empire into what it is today. There would rather be no expertise for nukes, nobody to architect oil pipelines, and a terribly demoralized and disloyal army. Russia is has aspects of a developed country because of the fantastic people that live there.
Stop paying taxes to dictators, narcissists, and megalomaniacs.
We should widely open borders to Russian refugees and defectors. Patriotism is the love of a country, not a dictator.
This is both morally (are Americans responsible for Bush’s & Obama’s wars? Should they stop paying taxes? They’re clearly much richer than Russians) and factually (North Korea hasn’t collapsed yet) wrong.
Imagine there's one big bully in a schoolyard playground, alongside the one kid who is singled out. All the other kids (freely) choose to follow the bullies' lead and, at the very best, join in by ostracizing the victim. Who is in the wrong in that scenario?
The best thing Russian people can do is render Putin the king of an empty kingdom, and that was always the solution. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands, to millions and tens of millions of people (depending on where the poverty line is in Russia) for who that isn't an option. Equally so, those people wouldn't have been able to lift Putin's empire into what it is today. There would rather be no expertise for nukes, nobody to architect oil pipelines, and a terribly demoralized and disloyal army. Russia is has aspects of a developed country because of the fantastic people that live there.
Stop paying taxes to dictators, narcissists, and megalomaniacs.
We should widely open borders to Russian refugees and defectors. Patriotism is the love of a country, not a dictator.