> they would get tens of millions of new insurgents.

I doubt it. Most people will be passive and will just live their lives. They will get a few for sure, but they won't be able to do all that much. It's not like the ruling elite cares if there's an occasional killing, after all, they already use that method themselves, see the list of Russian businessmen and manager deaths.

Not everyone would be involved in directly fighting, but there are intelligence networks, supply networks, opportunities for discreet sabotage and falsifying critical data, and many other ways that people can support a resistance movement that would continue even in a fully occupied Ukraine.

In 1922 Russians have won the war against Ukrainian People's Republic. After 20 years, vast majority of Ukrainians who opposed the occupation were dead, scared to death, refugees in other countries, or in forced labor camps in Siberia and other remote places of USSR.

I'm afraid Russians have already started re-implementing elements of the same 100 years old strategy: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/01/forcible-transfer-ukrain...

This is a terrible truth, but the situation has changed in this war because everyone is contributing in organized volunteer centers. The amount of coordination is orders of magnitude greater than was possible a hundred years ago. I don’t think such a large society has ever been so fully engaged in a single purpose in history. Because the strategy is so new, it would be a mistake to assume that old tactics will work against it in the same way they have in the past. Nothing is guaranteed, but I wouldn’t bet against the Ukrainian people even in the worst circumstances.