The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
What makes you sure that it won't cement their position even more? Western countries hurting russia's economy via sanctions basically confirms the "evil westerners" narrative.
You just stated that the people of the whole country need to start suffering. There already was period in our history when one politicial stated that we must all be destroyed as an ethnic group and our lands repopulated, and that was not good at all.
Enough that there are protests in most major Russian cities against the invasion of Ukraine.
Just yesterday, Moscow police arrested over 1,000 protesters. They can only keep up that pace for so long.
It, uh, didn't accomplish much. I'm not sure that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is any more inclined to listen to protests than the Department of State was.
Sorry, do you mean the protestors can only keep it up for so long, or the police can only keep arresting for so long?
> In repressive regimes there is no freedom to protest. You cannot have hypocrisy in how you deal with political protests if you do not have political protests!
Unfortunately there’s no other options left. Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
And getting worse.
> Let’s hope Ukraine will be able to resist long enough to force Putin to negotiate peace and to forget about any attempt to reach his goals along the Western borders of Russia by military means.
I hope with you but the force asymmetry is large. But so far they have been doing much better than could have reasonably been expected.
> It’s too bad that our hope is that enough Russian soldiers will die for Russian public to notice that war is in their house.
This will be one of the most carefully controlled statistics, there is no way that official channels will get close to communicating these numbers. I've been wondering if this isn't one of those areas where the tech world could really assist.
> There’s no popular support for the war, but the pain of war is not yet felt.
And likely won't be for weeks or even months.
> Unfortunately there’s no other options left.
Agreed.
> Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
Also agreed, but they are a message, especially if those sanctions hurt the EU as well. I would be happy to shut down the heat here if that's what it took to get the EU completely disconnected from Russian gas. It would be very annoying but we'd live, my grandparents went through far worse than that. And I've been trying to figure out how I can really help Ukrainian refugees.
It is not that large. I remember an estimate of some strategist that you need 5x more firepower to win a battle in urban environment (cannot find the link, sorry). Even if Russia sends 20-30% of its entire army and national guard to Ukraine, this would mean only a parity with highly motivated defenders. Russia certainly has better equipment and air support, but it may still take a lot of time and casualties will be high.
Very frustrating all this. Just one of Putin's entourage showing some courage would deal with this.
>"Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering"
When you talk like this about whole nation I am not even sure what to call it. Well actually I do but I did not yet have enough of HN.
But, how do you see Putin getting pushed out of power, other than by the Russian people? If it is required that the Russian people push him out, is it not logical that they must be motivated, with the assumption that sanctions would not be required if they were already motivated enough?
I'm trying to understand all of this, and I appreciate your opinion/perspective.
If you think that you can sanction / starve Russia to the point that simple people will organize, revolt and depose Putin I think you live on a different planet.
The only force that can really depose him are some competing elites assuming they have backing from enforcement agencies / military. I am not sure how you can sanction / bribe those into action.
Personally I think the West had quite a few years to sort things out between Russia and Ukraine. I think it was possible. I do not have any real proof but I suspect that instead of trying to find some meaningful compromise they were playing hard ball and are now reaping a "reward". What to do now - I have no frigging clue as the situation is out of control.
As for the subject of "suffering" - purposely starving the whole nation and keeping people hostage I think is what scumbags do / advocate.