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by socceroos 1553 days ago
This would be a horrible approach, surely. He would give his citizens the precedent that exerting pressure on the regime yields results.
2 comments

Well, even mainstream Russian TV started to criticize the war. Recently there were two guests, one a film director and another a member of their Duma (parliament), and they both said the war has to stop (for different reasons). Famously, the director said that the suffering of one group of innocent people (real of alleged - the Russians in Donbas) will not be alleviated by suffering of another innocent group of people. This sane rhetoric is quite rare in public Russian TV so my guess is they are preparing some room for potential retreat, or whatever they will call it.
This is was a bit of a misinterpretation of the exchange in the viral tweet I think you're referring to. Consider as well that the other 7 guests, as well as the next three days' incarnation of the talk show, were all-in on pro-regime propaganda. Tthat Russia is just pre-empting an inevitable war against the US and NATO in Ukraine; that Biden has bioweapons labs in Ukraine; that the Americans launched their russophobic sanctions with the "special military operation" as an excuse, and an absurdly implausible excuse at that; also that said sanctions will hurt the Americans a lot more than they hurt Russians.
These are not normal circumstances though, everyone ought to be aware of that. And even then, "exerting pressure" is not the same thing as, e.g. trying to oust Putin. One can very much allow the former and not the latter.