This is always true, and yet dictators have existed since the dawn of humanity. I don't know why people expect Russians to function like a hivemind, rather than humans that disagree and have instincts for self preservation

Sanctions make inaction less and less attractive.

Let me rephrase it for you: sure, even if it's "only" 30% of the population VS the government, the regime is fucked. However, the dilema is that they _will_ arrest some percentage, so, are you willing to be in that bucket, having no idea of whether the protest will turn out to be anything? If you don't, how can you ask (a very large number of) other people to make up their mind and get fucked in your favor? People and crowds do not act as a hivemind. Humans are not built for this.

I was in that 30% before leaving Russia permanently in 2012. Them others not joining for various reasons is the reason we are in that fucked situation in the first place. I have a word or two to say about inaction, and how it is an excuse.

The writing about authoritarianism has already been on the wall by 2010. The anti-ukranian fascism turned out to be a surprise though.

There's more efficient way to silence 1% than arrests. More efficient and permanent. Russians lived through it just a couple generations ago.

>They can't even arrest 1% of population - detention system can't handle that.

Why can't they? In free and democratic USA 5% of the population is incarcerated.

Building more detention facilities will take time. Hiring more people to work there might not be feasible due to dissent.

That'd be one out of twenty? Doesn't sound plausible to me. Do you have any source?

Maybe they meant something else.

Data from the US Department of Justice for 2019: https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/docu...

> By the end of 2019, the incarceration rate had dropped to the same rate as 1995 (810 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents).

Which is about 1 in 123.

> About 1 in 40 adult U.S. residents (2.5%) were under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2019. This represented a drop from 1 in 32 (3.1%) a decade earlier.

The above includes people on probation or parole.

Let's say 2 million people are on the streets protesting. What's next?

a bit of extrene violence, then nothing. after that the police starts imprisoning active people, threatening them via families etc. belarus scenario

That's easy - block highways, train tracks, etc. Anything that is used to wage the war.