I see your position, thanks for answering in good faith.

But that’s not quite what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way indiscriminate carpet sanctions and other imposed limitations end up fueling Putin’s war machine, and subsequently harming Ukraine.

The sanctions imposed on Russia and the common attitudes towards Russians don’t make any difference between people that are genuinely opposed to this war and could be used as a voice against oppression, and people that are totally up for the murder spree. Much of the former had pro-European values and could become instrumental to shaking Putin’s war machine from the inside. Proper asylum mechanisms and more aid with censorship acoidance would allow them to move the sentiment from the private kitchens to the public space. Inside Russia as we know it now, these people have no chance to be heard.

These people, the very people who could help make a change, see themselves neglected, hated, equalized to murderers - which lays neatly in the propaganda narrative. Some then get disillusioned in their support of Europe, take up arms and follow the Russian elite in murdering people. Others have to hide their opinion in fear of persecution. Brave souls who did say what they mean out loud are now in jail, being offered no safer way out, thrown away as if expendable. Folks who get legitimate reasons to stay somewhere outside the country face issues finding a job or any sort of stability as they often find themselves severely ostracised, and live in fear of having to go back home, where each and every of their anti-war words will add years to their future sentence.

What Europe could use to help stop the war, it just blew away, not understanding, or maybe not caring for, what it means for the actual war, and pleasing its electorate with Yet Another Big Sanctions Pack that will surely help this time. It won’t, because it misses the point.