Not sure why you are being downvoted. Julia Ioffe said that Putin is the "moderating force" in his inner circle.

I think people have so much rage against Putin (understandably) that they want all facts to point to Putin being the sole problem and fantasize about his death and it solving the current situation. It is unfortunately not so simple.

Putin's death will solve problems, true. And it will happen almost inevitably. That doesn't mean things will become worse before becoming better.

Yes, for example Alexei Navalny. It is funny how West sees him as "opposition leader" (just because Putin tried to poison him), while the whole reason he opposes Putin is he thinks Putin is not radical and nationalist enough.

It goes back further than that. He was widely seen as the most viable opposition candidate in the 2018 presidential election, before being banned from running on trumped up charges.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/06/17/aleksei-navalnys...

I don't know much about his political views; Wikipedia confirms that he does advocate nationalism and controlled immigration, but also supports legalising same-sex marriage, and opposed the annexation of Crimea and Russian interventions in Syria. He certainly comes across as less hawkish than Putin based on that.