[TameAntelope]

By all accounts, he didn’t need to, but this goes so much further than just Putin. Local elections exist, they have a bicameral legislative body that approved this invasion, they originally approved the authoritarian constitution that allowed this to happen, they continue to prop up strong men in their culture and in their government.

This is a continuous choice by the Russian people to support men like Putin and Yeltsin, and it has massive negative consequences for the rest of the world.

Of course it makes sense to make it marginally harder to register and maintain a domain on the Internet as a result. If that’s the price a small handful of Russians have to pay for all of this, they should be infinitely grateful.

[goldsteinq]

As an independent observer on the last Duma (lower house of Russian parliament) elections, I can tell with certainty that these elections were rigged. Upper house of the parliament is not elected.

[TameAntelope]

If Russian elections are not free and fair (which they likely aren't), and the Russian people are not revolting or leaving, they are complicit in the outcomes anyway.

[goldsteinq]

How exactly you see a revolution of unarmed people against fully armed people that have no problem with hurting and killing others? Do you really think that average Russian has enough money to leave the country?

[TameAntelope]

Not well! But the alternative is to let Putin kill and threaten people on your behalf, so that's not going well either. No good options here, but at least if you revolt or leave, he's not doing those things with your endorsement. "It's hard!" is not an excuse to tolerate war crimes.

And yes, I really think the average Russian has enough resources to leave the country, because you need zero resources to stand up from your chair and walk in a direction. If you're stopped, that's not your fault, you're actively trying.

[goldsteinq]

So you’re saying that all Russian people should just die horrible death trying to go unarmed against National Guard (the force that exists specifically to beat up and torture protestors)...

...or just be shot trying to illegally cross the border.

You’re literally suggesting some sort of self-genocide of 150 million nation.

[TameAntelope]

If you think the most effective way to overthrow the Russian government is to try to go 1 on 1 against the Russian National Guard, you're probably not going to last very long in Russia or anywhere else, for that matter.

Same if you think literally doing zero prep work to leave Russia has a high chance of success. If it's your only option, you're not thinking creatively enough.

It just seems like you're operating in a state of learned helplessness, which is immensely sad but not the only way to live.