It did turn into a bloodbath at Euromaidan, but the people still came out, for months, and fought to change a corrupt regime that lied to them, as they have in many other countries in the past. Russians are not helpless. The main argument when this gets brought up seems to be that it's going to be hard and people will get hurt. Of course Putin isn't going to just throw up his hands and say "Ok guys, you win, I'm out". Nobody is expecting that. But we've seen that change is possible, and if the Russians are as against Putin's regime as some like to claim they are (with some even saying it's _most_ Russians), maybe it's time to actually do something about it. In the end, they're likely the only ones who can.

I don't think we've reached the point where the balance would tip. Yet. When you strike at the king you best not miss.

Putin was shaken up by Euromaidan and been preparing so it doesn't happen to him ever since. Ukraine 2014 != Russia 2022. Back then Ukraine even had free speech.

I apologize in advance for some emotion that'll come out in the rest of this comment, but I feel the need to say it.

I wish Russian people would then stop telling me all about how most Russians are against Putin and hate him, and then act completely helpless at the thought of doing anything about it. They are just empty words, then, because they're followed by plenty of excuses for inaction. My grandfather is spending another war hiding from bombs in a basement, but Russian people get to catch trains to Finland while telling us platitudes about how "most" of them are _so_ against Putin.

And that's the problem right there: most Russians don't hate him. They've been subjected to a decades long barrage of obligatory Putin worship and even today his support is higher than that of the American president. They don't speak any other language than Russian and don't have access to other news sources. This is a real problem, because (1) it all but ensures that this war will last much longer than it should (it shouldn't have started to begin with) and (2) that Russia needs some kind of victory to be able to back out in order to sustain the myth. No such victory can be defined. This makes for a very bleak future.

Meanwhile the West stands by wringing their hands and crying because 'there isn't anything they can do', when in reality they are just scared.

The best bet right now would be for some Russian faction near the seat of power to get rid of Putin once and for all. Of course the instability that would generate would be at least as dangerous as this war, if not more dangerous but it would also have the potential to improve things.

I won't say anything about your grandfather because anything I could say would sound meaningless.

I’d love to know what you think the West can do, except that we are scared? I think the West is doing absolutely the right thing. This is a disaster for Putin but you know what could turn it around for him? If we give him an excuse to escalate the war and unite the Russian people against the West.

EDIT: those are some good ideas. I definitely think we need to turn up the sanctions, so far Putin seems on the backfoot but he has increased the shelling of civilians, even agreed-upon evacuation points which is just straight up evil.

Cut off Russian gas and oil completely for starters, go after all Russian investments in the West, refuse to do business with any company in Russia, no more boats in and out of Russia, no more cargo, refuse to do business with companies from other countries that continue to do business in Russia, gift major arms and training to Ukraine on the assumption that this war isn't going to be over in a week.

Putin will see his reasons for escalation wherever he wants, whatever will suit him, if that becomes the touchstone then we are already way across the line regardless of our fears. After all, we exist.

it may be selfish, but I don't want to sit in prison and be beaten by police. If you are against Putin, why haven't you supported Russians in 2019 when they took to streets against him? Came to our country with Molotovs? Or was it too far away from you? Everybody was just "concerned" by it and now you and me are paying the pric, because since then it's even harder for us to organize and do anything about this crazy shithead.

> Catching trains to Finland

When rumors about borders closing started to appear me and my GF had to grab clothes and medicine, enough to fit into baggage, book ANYTHING that flies from Russia within the next day. I had to leave all my savings that I've been saving up for years (banks stopped giving money), I had to leave a newly bought apartment, I had to leave my parents and grandparents that I may never see again.

Compared to dying because of a high explosive bomb landing in the middle of your apartment building I think you got the better deal.

Keep in mind that just having choices is a luxury.

Oh, and your dictator, your primary responsibility. Or do you blame the West for Putin?

It's definitely a better deal than those 300+ civilians and many more military whose lifes were lost, I am not gonna bloody argue about that.

And yet I don't like when people discount broken lifes of Russians who had to flee their country leaving everything behind. Both Ukranians and Russians are refugees in this case. One difference they may not experience is being afraid of passing strangers in a country they fled to.

So much suffering... Everything because of one crazy guy. As far as I've heard even most of Putin's generals were shocked by his decision to invade. I hope one of them can muster courage and get close enough...

The only people that can do something about it right this moment are all in Russia and as long as they don't the carnage will continue (in your name, no less).

Putin's generals have over the years been carefully winnowed down to a bunch of spineless bastards, it's clear that near a dictator of such power you will not find any credible competition, those are either in jail or six feet under. Interesting side effect, that also means that the really competent people have left or have been pensioned off.

And yet, those that are left are the only people with a credible shot at this. And the world - and their country - would likely love them for it, assuming they would live. Let's see which Russian fat cat grows a pair first. I think the touchstone will be when Putin gives the orders to deploy a nuke.

One reason sanctions against Putin aren't harder than they are, is because those of us in western Europe are still taking the relative luxury of (in my case) typing this comment sitting inside wearing an t-shirt, instead of having to wear my skiing inside my apartment.

I.e. the current sanctions explicitly excluded natural gas etc. Russia supplies around 40% of the EU's gas, demand is around 2x as higher.

We could just wear coats, but we're not. We could also do something more about it, but we're not.

Yes, and that was dumb, it telegraphed a very clear weakness to Putin.

That's an interesting sentiment, to ask people who aren't Russian and do not live in Russia to come protest on your behalf to overthrow your dictatorship. Do you think foreigners coming into Russia to protest (or violently riot, as you seem to be suggesting) would do the trick? That's a legitimate question - would Russians take kindly do that kind of initiative? Many Russian people, even the ones claiming that most of them hate Putin so much, seem to be packing up and leaving - are they genuinely hoping Ukrainians and other foreign civilians will come do this for them?

Sorry you had to leave your new apartment and have to figure out how to open a new bank account for your US salary. And I hope both of us get to see our families again.

"Black lives matter" and "Moscow election protests" happened around the same time. I have nothing against BLM, but I can say that many Russians got plenty upset, that all countries had huge protests around the world (even New Zealand) to support BLM, while Russian protests were completely ignored by the international community. Nobody is asking to come to Russia, but we've been alone in our fight with Putin all along, the "West" haven't tried to help us fight his propaganda. I guess he is our problem now, but it's a little too late.

Black Lives Matter protests were about an internal affair in countries not yours, and just like it would be pretty weird to expect Russians to turn up there to help out I think it is a bit strange to expect Westerners to come to Russia to effect change.

The Russian protests were not 'completely ignored', it's just that all we can really do here is report on them.

> I guess he is our problem now

He always was. Now he is also Ukraine's problem (more so than in the recent past).

There was a massive international solidarity shown during BLM which certainly pressured the US government to take the issue seriously. There was no solidarity with Russian people protesting against Putin, and there is still no solidarity now.

I am with you. If anything I want to turn up the sanctions even more, as I see Putin ramping up the war crimes he’s committing in Ukraine out of frustration at the resistance there.

I fully expect him to destroy it completely if he can't seize it and I am scared shitless of what could very well be the first deployment of nuclear weapons on the European continent, the nuking of Kyiv. I would definitely not put it past Putin and I hope that before we get to that that there will be a palace revolt in Russia because if they just keep following orders there all bets are quite literally off.

Euromaidan was not simply shaking keys and they were not enough of a %. They were just a couple thousand. Easy to beat into submission.

I'm saying there needs to be 1 or 2 million Muskovites that simply wake up on Sunday and collectively decide to walk down to the Red Square and shake their keys. This will send a message to Putin that there are a large number of Russians who are not happy with his actions.

In this hypothetical scenario I'm pretty sure if united all the Russians would manage to hang putin by his ball from the Kremlin pretty easily.

I'm talking about ALL the people that are against Putin. Which if this guy is to be believed is most of the people. They are not going to kill most of their own people. A million people marching in Moscow would change minds.

> A million people marching in Moscow would change minds

Especially if, say, a quarter of them were military and/or internal security personnel that came out with their gear.

Even the least democratic government relies on support of the people to function, but not even the most democratic (and certainly not Russia) depends on each person’s support equally.

> A million people marching in Moscow would change minds.

How? What would they do? They would march and riot and protest and then after a day or two they would go home. Meanwhile the politicians will just wait it out and the show will go on (see Belarus).

Why would you assume that? (See Euromaidan)

One possibility is that Yanukovich is more humane than putin or lukashenko. I don't know enough about him to compare but the last two are merciless dictators.

That's not a real possibility though, the only way Ukraine will be kept down will be with continuous threats. I personally don't think he will live an hour after he sets foot into Kyiv.

There's another thing that was different at Euromaidan vs current Russia: Yanukovich and his people had somewhere to run (Russia). Putin doesn't.

He doesn't have to run to someplace, he can just run into some stuff. Preferably a bullet.

Compare the total area of Ukraine and Russia - and max distance between the border and the capital city.

I agree it would change minds. And at the same time I'm pretty sure it would end in a bloodbath. Passive resistance against a dictatorship is a lot safer than active resistance. Of course the latter sends a more powerful message but it makes it obvious who to target, when and where and the reflexive response will be to lash out. Still, there is safety in numbers so maybe it would work. But I would not immediately bet on it, otoh simply crippling the Russian economy further could be achieved by inaction.

There are already young people brave enough to protest with just 2000 people protesting.

I'm talking about a million people standing outside and walking towards the Red Square, shaking their keys. If Russians cannot manage this, then I do not have sympathy whatsoever.

I saw a picture of a Russian mall from yesterday, lots of people out and about shopping like nothing is amiss. So far the Russian protests are pretty anemic (I mean in numbers, not in passion, and I greatly respect those currently protesting), it seems most Russians are a lot more concerned with the status quo, and that life is still pretty comfortable for them while bombs rain down on Ukrainian civilians. There’s so much they could be doing to show their disagreement with the government.

> So far the Russian protests are pretty anemic (I mean in numbers, not in passion, and I greatly respect those currently protesting)

Well I don't know about passion. I've seen videos where there are a lot of people protesting but when the police come grab a girl, everyone just stands around watching and filming. When the police come running at a crowd, the crowd runs away and it fizzles out. There's none of the Maidan passion.

This is compounded by the fact that the troops Russia has sent are predominantly from the very far East of Russia and are not directly related to the Russian cosmopolitans from the West. SOP for the Russians in the last wars.

Those people are especially brave because the numbers are so low. But they are being made an example out of and that will have a chilling effect on whoever might have followed them.

> If Russians cannot manage this, then I do not have sympathy whatsoever.

If you haven't seen this firsthand, then I understand.

But I have seen it firsthand. Here is how it went: in the 80's, when solidarity was rising up in Poland a relatively small minority drove the revolution, and found support in a large chunk of the younger generation and some in older people as well.

But the bulk of the Poles had seen it all before. Small uprisings that were brutally smacked down, with the local secret police making lists of people to raise from their beds in the inevitable crackdown. So they were advising their kids not to go to the Solidarity rallies, not to protest and so on. In some families this led to harsh words, and some families never really recovered.

Because that one time those kids and the people behind Solidarity were right, they prevailed. They managed to achieve critical mass. They showed that you too could be brave and on the right side of history, and live to tell the tale. And eventually, after the wall fell of course all those other people suffered from memory loss and they too had been present at probably every demonstration, instead of sitting quaking in their house about the kind of terrible thing those idiot youngsters were bringing down on their houses. But make no mistake: for all the same money the army would have opened fire on the protests. It wasn't a 'done deal' until it was and it could have very easily gone the other way, as it had so many times before.

And note that it was tried:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek

(I really don't like the title of that article) and even if you may see the death toll as 'acceptable' the fact is that those people died and if the same thing had happened in for instance Gdansk the death toll would have been a very large multiple of that. It may not have been enough to break the back of Solidarity, but that's not something we will ever know for sure.

If you've seen the kind of bravery in Russia in the last couple of years, regarding the murders of journalists, the jailing of opposition politicians and so on then you really have to keep a little bit of room for the cowards that were right every time so far, and who can not with all their fantasy see a million people march on the Kremlin. And by not being able to see it they indeed make it less likely. If it happens it should be massive. 2000 people will get arrested, a substantial multiple of that might get shot, and we're nowhere near the point where a million people would mobilize. But if and when they do, there will be a lot of blood flowing and at the end of it Putin will be gone. But they'd better bring something more potent than just their housekeys.

A million people marching won't change Putin's mind, only a bullet to the head could (tho I don't expect protesters have a chance to reach him in his bunker), but it could convince even more citizens to walk into fire. However the army will certainly be given the order to kill their own people if they rise up, Putin's learned how to quell a revolt with blood while helping al-Assad with his own. I don't believe for a second he wouldn't turn another one or two of his cities into Grozny or Aleppo if he deems it necessary to deter revolt and make a point. The question is, if people actually revolt en masse, just how far will the military go in obeying orders. I don't believe in god but may it help them all, and us afterwards, if the they can't be convinced to mutiny even under those orders.

That's pretty much how I see it, which is why I think the responsible choice would be to just refuse to show up for work. Eventually that will cripple the country to the point where everything stops working and it will be much harder to get past that compared to a concentrated protest.

>They are not going to kill most of their own people

What makes you think that? Do you think the Uyghurs of which there are millions in China should just walk out shaking their fucking keys?

If Putin loses the war he will lose power. He will no longer win the next election as he'll be seen as weak. So he can't change his mind and if people start a protest in Moscow it is in his interest to do everything he can to quell it.

Furthermore you say you have no sympathy for Russians if they can't manage to get a million people to walk out. So if there are only 10,000 people who are against Putin, they just have to suffer the consequences for the choices that the rest of them made?