Ukraine

efil4stnias said
Regimes - yes.

Citizens - not as much.

Russia is divided into 2 halves. West/East of Urals- East of Urals, much of it resembles that of a remote Mongolian village- no paved roads, no reliable utilities, outhouses etc. ( outside of the handful of "city centers" in each region )

The west half however, is fully integrated to the west. By that i mean, they know what having money means.

Causing economic hardship East of the Urals is futile- for they have lived in abject poverty for decades and assimilated.

Cause economic hardship West of the Urals- it will be the exact opposite. Those folks will not return to the "Soviet' ways of State dependence, rations etc.

Thats the real threat to Putins regime. ITs not guns, bullets, tanks, planes, missiles...its losing the one thing that he ( and most Russians are conditioned to ) covets- money=power. Remove the money from equation and its a totally different playing field.

NK has persisted for 70+ years because the last 5 generations have no idea what is outside the borders of NK. Not a clue.

Russians do. Thats a big difference.

I'm sure they're aware of all of this, at least the ones with any intelligence. However, the question is what can/will they do about it. As a Russian citizen, if you don't like how things are, your options 1) leave 2) actively oppose the Putin regime 3) just go along with things as they are. Those who want to take option 1, have pretty much already done so. 2) will likely end you in jail (if you're lucky) or dead. 3) is simply the path of least resistance.

And even if Putin is deposed somehow, would that really improve things? As the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated, simply making nice with the West and allowing foreign investment, etc. doesn't guarantee anything, indeed it can make things worse.