I think that the government of a country is a lagging metric of the value of its people.
You will note how many Western governments over the past few days have been saying explicitly: "These sanctions are not meant at the Russian people, we see that they did not want this war". It doesn't seem like this is even true from polling, but it's calculated messaging, and it's important.
But my argument is different. If because of sanctions Russians people start to think a little bit and question their government, that will be a start. That may not happen to be honest because as I said, the government of a country is a reflexion of the values of that country. And I am not sure for Russia.
I have family in Moldova and in far-east Russia. I was talking to a cousin in the far-east and I can't even believe the discussion we had few weeks ago.
It's pretty evil to expect a populace to do that. In fact it is scarily similar to the ideas within early soviet governments, that mass death now is worthwhile and acceptable to allow for a promised utopia later.
This somehow reminds me of how Putin, in his ridiculous speeches, cited NATO involvement in Serbia and Iraq as a reason to attack Ukraine. Of course, the western politicians responsible for those decisions are now gone, because unlike Putin, they respected term limits.
The US hasn't had a perfect track record in the "wars of choice" department. The US voter does have some moral responsibility for it. The flaw, however, would be in saying as Putin does that the US political system is totally invalid for this, or justifies bad behavior elsewhere.
i say this as someone living in US borders and citizenship