Political problems don't have technological solutions.

Telling these people to use Bitcoin is just giving their government another tool to send them to jail.

Any arguments against bitcoin are shattered by one simple fact: currently bitcoin is the least risky and simultaneously the easiest way for russian citizens to fund anti-Putin opposition. Any first world do-gooder who wants to ban it because 'it is bad for environment' should first ban himself from existence because humans are bad for environment.

Seeing how well the ransomware industry is faring, it seems Putin doesn't feel too threatened yet.

But what happens when he bans all exchanges that off-board cryptocurrencies to Ruble? Will the opposition be happy with tokens that are suddenly useless for day-to-day expenses?

The exchange I'm using is already banned. Didn't stop anyone.

The real threat is police baiting users of such exchanges into sending or receiving funds. But we're yet to see such activity from them.

You haven't seen such activity yet because they don't think you're worth the trouble. If you ever are, it will change, and the exchange will become useless.