I just don't think human psychology works this way. Your attitude is akin to a parent's with a child, "your actions have consequences, so do better". But Russia's parent in this analogy is Putin, and he will use such things to his advantage. Your approach might feel just, but the message will be completely lost.

You will note how many Western governments over the past few days have been saying explicitly: "These sanctions are not meant at the Russian people, we see that they did not want this war". It doesn't seem like this is even true from polling, but it's calculated messaging, and it's important.

You are using an analogy to a totally different domain (parent / child) where the rules of the game is totally different (in parent / child relationship, everything is controlled and non-escalatory: it's about education and the assumption is that there is no violence). In this frame of reference you might win the argument.

But my argument is different. If because of sanctions Russians people start to think a little bit and question their government, that will be a start. That may not happen to be honest because as I said, the government of a country is a reflexion of the values of that country. And I am not sure for Russia.

I have family in Moldova and in far-east Russia. I was talking to a cousin in the far-east and I can't even believe the discussion we had few weeks ago.

It’s just a desire for revenge. Whatever solutions this approach promises are imaginary.

Throughout most of history, and in pretty much every non-democratic country, people must die to change the government. You've seen what Putin does to dissidents and even to protestors. Most revolts require decades of fighting and huge numbers of lives lost.

It's pretty evil to expect a populace to do that. In fact it is scarily similar to the ideas within early soviet governments, that mass death now is worthwhile and acceptable to allow for a promised utopia later.

I'm not sure I agree.

This somehow reminds me of how Putin, in his ridiculous speeches, cited NATO involvement in Serbia and Iraq as a reason to attack Ukraine. Of course, the western politicians responsible for those decisions are now gone, because unlike Putin, they respected term limits.

The US hasn't had a perfect track record in the "wars of choice" department. The US voter does have some moral responsibility for it. The flaw, however, would be in saying as Putin does that the US political system is totally invalid for this, or justifies bad behavior elsewhere.

I guess all the Putin supporters outside of Russia are very lucky to not have to move their domains off namecheap!

then my value as a person living in the US is net negative to the world ?

i say this as someone living in US borders and citizenship