[throwaway787544]

> However, seeing rabid mccartism and imposing collective guilt only makes me feel under siege.

Seeing as that is the whole point of the sanctions, I'd say it's working. The point is to piss off regular Russians enough that at some point they might decide to overthrow their dictator.

[russiano]

Oh no, quite the opposite actually - the most pissed off demographics is people like me, faint-hearted internet liberals. A coup is extremely unlikely, like less likely than an actual nuclear war

Another funny fact that I wanted to tell about is that a couple of years ago Google/Apple helped to derail opposition effort to consolidate and push people not from the ruling party to parlament. They banned apps offering vital information on voting patters. Now they are on the high moral horse, along with FB

[toomuchtodo]

It seems very unlikely at this point Putin will be overthrown. Sanctions will need to do to Russia’s economy what Russia is doing to Ukraine’s cities, reducing them to rubble. You have to salt their economic earth to prevent this from occurring again after Putin dies, is couped, etc (allow for an authoritarian who will likely fill the power vacuum, without any military power).

[toomuchtodo]

It appears this is the path the US will be adopting.

> Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Kyiv visit: "We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine"

> Russia “has already lost a lot of military capability, and a lot of its troops quite frankly,” Austin said. “We want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/u-s-aims-...