I’m way out of my comfort zone with all this, but something that I’ve heard a few times is that the Russians need to stop this from within. I’ve then been thinking about how this looks from a Russian perspective, and what the appetite would be to do something about it.
The closest I can compare it to is our invasion of Iraq. I was in my early 20’s and one of my best friends was sent out there with the Marines. We dropped bombs on the country, killing 1000’s of people, and lost a lot of servicemen. I remember people around me regularly saying ‘bomb the lot of them.’ People defending their villages were ‘terrorists’ not civilians. I appreciate many thousands protested, but many thousand also completely dehumanised what was happening, myself included. I just wanted my mate to come home safe.
And ultimately, why were we there? The argument for going was weak, and the weapons of mass destruction was BS. Other than protests, we did nothing as a nation to stop it.
So, back to the Russians, how are they going to do anything? They’re constantly streamed propaganda, and arrested if they speak out.
It seems that this can only play out the way Putin wants it. The question is, what is it that Putin wants?