That's an instance of the prisoner's dilemma though. They can't really arrest every single person who is against the war. They can't even arrest 1% of population - detention system can't handle that.
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
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.
> 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.