Don't underestimate Russian capabilities when it comes to punishing regular people - 18millions went through gulag system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very little since distances are too big. No one gonna notice if 1000 people in small russian city will land in prison.
Again I wish that people in Russia were as brave as those in ukrainians protecting their home, but I personally is not the one of brave ones. I wish I could do more to prevent this. Sorry.
Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I dont think so.
For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.
"Maximum penalties were fines of several thousand rubles or imposed labor of up to 200 hours" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...
That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people?
We have good examples of non-violent protests that won against such regimes:
We did in GDR. We went to te streets. The machine guns were mounted on the top of every single train station. We went to the streets anyway. Not with stones, but candle lights.
We have examples as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor#Strategy_and_tactics
We have literature about it https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
We have as well examples of violent protests through the History that worked (I don't support it, but we cannot deny their efficiency) https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-violent-protests-...