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> The talks like "let's hurt the regular people so they revolt against Putin"

As someone that comes from a sanctioned country, this is one important thing that most people that have never lived a similar situation don't understand:

-When you live in an authoritarian regime, you don't just "revolt" and topple the autocrat. In our case, it has cost a LOT of innocent lives in the streets protesting. Autocrats don't mind killing as many of their own citizens as they have to, to stay in power.

-The sanctions are usually paid for by the population. In our case, while the sanctions were certainly "inconvenient" to the government, most of the effects where on the regular people. Government cronies have no problem getting food, gasoline, etc. This then gives the autocrat the excuse: "Look, it's them causing this. I'm here to defend you from the bad imperialist sanctions.

Now, I'm not saying I know what the solution is, and I certainly get a lot of satisfaction in seeing that my local autocrats cannot travel freely with their ill-gotten gains and seeing yachts being confiscated all over the world. But it's my opinion that most of the time, sanctions affect a population that has very little power to do something about the situation.

That being said, in Russia's case, being very heavily constrained economically does throw a spanner in the gears of the war machine. Not sure how it's going to play out, but I bet Putin would rather see his people starve first before limiting the military funding of this.

These sanctions are not about inducing revolt. I imagine most policymakers and citizens in the West are clear-eyed about the hopeless political apathy in Russian society. It’s been 30 years of economic engagement and rising prosperity for them and all we got for it was this evil!, the Germans lament.

It’s more: starve the war machine’s economy, and be damned the consequences for ordinary Russians.

Geopolitics aside, I and many feel a simple moral repulsion at funding the aggressor in any way. Sure, one wishes many more Russians felt the same - not likely it seems.

I agree with all of this, however...

Parties to the U.N. Charter need to do better. There is no way back to the stable world, such as it was. And not least of which is, we were wrong about it having been stable.

This is too big a violation of the U.N. Charter to just set it aside and go back as if nothing happened. And that it happened, when the U.N. Charter system is designed expressly to prevent this from having happened, also shows there's a problem. Is it institutional? Or was it just wishful thinking that turned out to not be true? And now what?

Because we need the U.N. Charter's institutions now more than ever. If it is really under threat, it means we're at even bigger risk of yet another world war, the very thing the U.N Charter system is intended to prevent.

We now confront the very real possibility of the stability-instability paradox is true. As a result of Putin using nuclear weapons as a shield to permit him to commit atrocities with conventional weapons, which increases the risk of escalation to and including a nuclear exchange. That means there is a gap opening between conventional war and mutually assured destruction, a kind of limited nuclear exchange. The similar idea of having to crap so badly you think, "well maybe I'll just let a little bit out".

Which is worse? The idea of a little bit of nuclear weapons exchange? Or giving up on principles and getting a nuclear war anyway? I prefer to stick to the principles, and be damned to hell for them than to just give up these principles to the likes of Putin.

Kenya's Ambassador to the U.N. talking about Ukraine and the U.N. Charter system falling, just before the invasion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZlaiuicYM

I'm wondering if you have a better solution?

I understand your viewpoint and don't take it lightly.

But at this point, I don't see an alternative anymore, except putting feet on the ground. Which would make the whole situation worse.

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Note: a collegue of mine has a Russian wife and I asked if she was okay. She didn't encounter any hostilities and I was happy about that. Since it seemed plausible to me that some would/could.

She is, since recently, collecting funds for helping people in Ukraine.

> I also think the collective West has gone mad too. The campaign to cancel, ban, boycott and belittle everything and everyone that has anything to do with Russia is out of control. People are not to blame for the actions their government. The talks like "let's hurt the regular people so they revolt against Putin" are just like that villain from Shrek: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make".

Russian indifference is solely to blame. You care now that it hurts you, but the years of support to dictatorships abroad, from Cuba to Syria, the invasion of Georgia, Chechen. You didn't care about any of that.

oh, you know this guy?

> While I blame Putin for most of this, I also think the collective West has gone mad too. The campaign to cancel, ban, boycott and belittle everything and everyone that has anything to do with Russia is out of control. People are not to blame for the actions their government.

It is small consolation in light of the enormity of everything that is going on, but I think the Russian public has earned some respect from the rest of the world in the last several days. We see that something like five thousand people were arrested during protests against the invasion in one day alone.

I have no idea how any of that will translate into action. Things are crazy right now.

> ...like that villain from Shrek: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make".

Surely you see that in this analogy it is Putin who is the villain (Lord Farquaad)?

I'm going to "both sides" this one. Putin forced the sanctions by invading Ukraine, but the sanctions that are most painful are also the least discriminating. The Western powers know that ordinary Russians will be harmed by these sanctions, and in fact they're counting on that harm to destabilize Russia and turn its people against Putin.

Людей России, ты моя друзья.

I think, in the final reckoning, a people are always complicit when evil is done in their name, by their leaders and countrymen, & with their money.

Few wish to hear that “people aren’t to blame for their governments” while Ukrainians die for precisely their right to have such responsibility.

Moreover one may destroy a war machine by ruthlessly starving the economy which funds it. The prosperity of Russians correlates to the Russian army’s ability to make war.

> People are not to blame for the actions their government.

These are the same people who elect incompetent leaders to power and allowed them to seize control indefinitely. The people share some responsibility in this.

Quoting Colbert: > Putin is considering running again in 2024, but he hasn’t decided yet how much he wants to win by.