I actually think the Russian people are too nice and tolerant.
Too many Russians choose to ignore what's happening, they are too nice to their leaders.
People are threatened, brainwashed and provided with semblance of comfortable life in equal measures. Like that boiled frog, little by little they lost all their basic fundamental rights and freedoms to the point where a large part of the populace doesn't even question what's happening and those who do can't do anything about it. It is a profoundly disheartening to see what happened to the country and how very few cared.
This is what Western people don't understand about ALL dictatorships. They think that some jerk somehow got a few henchmen with guns and took over the whole country, and now millions of people are all too scared to do anything about it. That's simply not the case; dictators exist because they have popular support, and plenty of it. Dictators are human too, and can easily be murdered in their bathtubs. When they live a long time as dictator, it's because most of their people support them.
We as unfortunate owners of Russian passports as society do have responsibility for letting some criminal scum to get in power and stay in power, no doubt about it. But the guilt for what's happening now is also lay on western countries as well for happily financially sustain Putin's regime by buying resources from them and not giving enough of military aid to Ukraine when it's needed.
And what should we do now anyway? It's not like any western countries making it easy for immigrants from Russia to acquire working visas and residency permits. A lot more of taxpayers would flee from Russia if US or EU would help them, but they dont care about it.
PS: I pesonally left Russia on February 25th 2022 and haven't been there since, paid 0 taxes there, etc. But it's not like everyone had this option.
People are threatened, brainwashed and provided with semblance of comfortable life in equal measures. Like that boiled frog, little by little they lost all their basic fundamental rights and freedoms to the point where a large part of the populace doesn't even question what's happening and those who do can't do anything about it. It is a profoundly disheartening to see what happened to the country and how very few cared.