> They made their bed and they can now lie in it.

It never amazes me to encounter people who still don't know that Russia is not a democracy, that Russians have no voice and can't influence the direction of the country, that Russia has no elections and Putin (self-proclaimed President) is not a democratically elected leader.

Seems like the majority of people are uneducated to this extreme degree. Including the very highest leaders of the EU and the USA.

You know, things like coups exist. In many, many other countries leadership as bad as Russia's would have been ousted in a military coup long time ago, and the new regime would have pursued saner policy.

What are we Europeans supposed to do anyway? Negotiate about peace with leadership that isn't interested in peace? If history teaches us anything, it is that Russia's leadership respects only military force.

I'm not blaming ordinary Russians who indeed have very little power over anything, except that significant portion of them who support the war. But I am blaming the oligarchy, the elites who actually have some power, and yet let things continue like this.

Your opinions are much better thought-out than the most I have seen. I respect that. But you have several severe errors in your thinking I will try to convince you of:

1. Russia's military is not independent. FSB is above them. This "cutting the balls of the military" has been a long-term strategy. This is not comparable at all with the USA, let alone Turkey.

2. Military, power, strength resources are purposefully divided between different players, military does not have a monopoly on power. There are also FSB (with their own forces, judges, prison, killing teams), National Guard (have tanks), Private Companies (decreased/fractured after the Wagner debacle). Heck, Kadyrov's thugs are part of that equation as well.

3. There really aren't examples of successful coups from the bottom only.

4. No, I do not suggest negotiations with Putin, quite the opposite. Way more should be done to get rid of him and his family personally, and not pussyfoot around it.

5. EU's problem was and still is anemic, slow and stupid action (lack of). Damn morons.

6. No, a significant portion of the population does not support the war. Do North Koreans truly support their regime as witnessed by the voting results and by the fact that people are not protesting and are not organizing a coup?

7. Russia had Oligarchs, but doesn't have anymore. Oligarchy means that rich people can influence politics. In Russia they can't. The typical western "money brings political influence/power" does not apply in Russia. In Russia the rule is "political position (given by Putin) brings money (as long as Putin allows)". Businessmen have no independence. Check what happened to Tinkov (Tinkov bank). And he is the lucky one.

Ah yes. And every russian living abroad has a hit squad following them forcing them to support the war.

Stop with the nonsense. You can actually see the real voting results from the foreign voting stations (Helsinki, Berlin, etc). The support of antiwar candidates is overwhelming. Putin's United Russia party gets very few votes, and even those typically come from pensioners and people who moved abroad 20+ years ago. These are the facts.

  > It never amazes me to encounter people who still don't know that Russia is not a democracy, that Russians have no voice and can't influence the direction of the country, that Russia has no elections and Putin (self-proclaimed President) is not a democratically elected leader.

And none of this matters, because Russia has no tradition of democracy and has always been ruled by dictators who derive their legitimacy through other means; mainly through their success in expanding the empire. The more you steal and the more people die in the process, the greater leader you are. Putin is a continuation of that tradition and enjoys widespread support among a population that shares the same vision: that Russia is a chosen nation and that being conquered by Russia is a privilege.

Russian history offers an excellent counterexample in the downfall of the USSR when Gorbachev and others lost their legitimacy. Formally, they remained the top figures in the government; in practice, people gradually stopped following them over a period of a few years as everything was disintegrating (shortage of basic products, pointless war in Afghanistan, disasters like Chernobyl, etc). The people simply chose new leaders from among themselves and turned their backs to Moscow.

For example, a police station might've simply ignored orders from the ministry of internal affairs and instead followed the recommendations of a popular local figure (often a factory manager, uni professor, journalist, artist or writer). As districts increasingly acted this way, Moscow gradually lost control over the police force, which became decentralized and locally run. In the end, bosses in Moscow could yell all they wanted into a phone, but that did not move a single police officer on the ground.

Russian central government is currently nowhere near such loss of legitimacy. Tens of millions of people carry out the orders of their Führer every day. Some have stepped into a foreign country while carrying a gun. Others are milling artillery shells or programming cruise missiles. Some are sitting on HN trying to convince the world how their Führer has no other option than to murder Ukrainian children every night.

There is no pushback worth mentioning. Last year, out of 140 million people living in Russia, only 38 were arrested for anti-war protests. Add a few hundred more for anti-war posts on the social media. Completely insignificant numbers. Russians on HN will gladly explain how oppressive the climate in Russia has become and how difficult (gasp!) it is to protest, but they fail to recognize the downstream effects: that Ukrainians have to pay with their lives every single day for the cancer that the cowardice of Russians has unleashed. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are in mortal danger right now on the frontline, trying to stop what Russians are too afraid to confront themselves.

> It never amazes me to encounter people who still don't know that Russia is not a democracy

It doesn't matter, just like it didn't matter to British citizenry who endured the blitz that the Nazis had self-couped, and Germans couldn't vote Hitler out. The only 2 choices available are to roll over and be occupied, or fight back against the aggressor state.

The occupation will clearly not happen, therefore the most reasonable amd rational strategy is to hide your own feelings, not to do anything drastic that would endanger yourself, and just wait until the dictator dies.

As of the last election, judging by actual votes cast, only a third of the country isn't opposed to the war.

I hate to break it to you, but about those elections...

You may want to read my comment again.