Keep in mind that just having choices is a luxury.
Oh, and your dictator, your primary responsibility. Or do you blame the West for Putin?
And yet I don't like when people discount broken lifes of Russians who had to flee their country leaving everything behind. Both Ukranians and Russians are refugees in this case. One difference they may not experience is being afraid of passing strangers in a country they fled to.
So much suffering... Everything because of one crazy guy. As far as I've heard even most of Putin's generals were shocked by his decision to invade. I hope one of them can muster courage and get close enough...
Putin's generals have over the years been carefully winnowed down to a bunch of spineless bastards, it's clear that near a dictator of such power you will not find any credible competition, those are either in jail or six feet under. Interesting side effect, that also means that the really competent people have left or have been pensioned off.
And yet, those that are left are the only people with a credible shot at this. And the world - and their country - would likely love them for it, assuming they would live. Let's see which Russian fat cat grows a pair first. I think the touchstone will be when Putin gives the orders to deploy a nuke.
I.e. the current sanctions explicitly excluded natural gas etc. Russia supplies around 40% of the EU's gas, demand is around 2x as higher.
We could just wear coats, but we're not. We could also do something more about it, but we're not.