@strawberriesarenot
The situation surely can't be hidden from the Russian people forever. Are they going to get an enormous shock very soon?
That's an interesting question.
Firstly, it assumes that the situation is hidden from the Russian people.
Yes, the media is full propaganda mode but the demonstrations in Moscow at the start of the war at least demonstrate that some Russians at least have an awareness of what is happening.
I'm also reasonably certain that people in Russia who want to find alternative sources of information can probably do so.
The real question is why so many Russians are actively or passively supporting Putin - including those with relatives in Ukraine who don't believe what close family are telling them what they have witnessed.
Fundamentally I believe there are parallels with Nazi Germany where many people turned a blind eye to seeing with their own eyes what was happening to Jewish members of their communities - people they had socialised, done business, worked with.
Deep down there is a sense of "they deserved it" and "we are better" and "I'm on the side of right".
Sounds horrible? Yes. But are we any different? Realistically how many people in the U.K. actively protested about going to war in Iraq and the "rational" of weapons of mass destruction?
How do you think we as a nation would have reacted if hit by harsh sanctions by other countries? Would we have been on the streets ready to overthrow the government (irrespective of the far lesser risks of doing so in a democracy) or would we have found our national pride and dug deep to find our resolve in fighting this economic assault on our country?
Humans are complex and we have biases and loyalties that are deeply ingrained, that frankly we never notice until tested.
The assumption that Russians will rail against Putin I think is misguided. Rather I think the harsh impact of sanctions will bind them to him.
To be clear I'm not suggesting sanctions should not be used - other than boots on the ground what are the options? Rather my thinking is that it might impact how Putin behaves/alters his strategy but I don't believe it's going to result in a popular uprising.
People get inured to war and this "special operation" isn't Putin's first rodeo. For many Russian people this is "same again" albeit with with higher stakes but they are used to winning- because the West pussy footed around Putin for two decades.