Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

Russia's culture is directly responsible for what's happening.

How can I possibly dislike a culture of xenophobia, racism, ethnic superiority, conquest lust, power & might as right, advocation of government as a vehicle for conquering, and the use of force as the highest ideal?

I'm speaking of the German region ~1890-1930, which very aggressively espoused and supported such ideas, many millions of people believed similarly to what the Nazi regime ended up codifying as its core ideas. Which had predictable end results. Yes, I can dislike very large numbers of people that hold such ideas, properly so in fact.

How can you dislike hundreds of thousands of racists in southern states circa 1950? Oh quite easily and entirely rationally.

You can dislike evil aspects of a culture. And you can properly dislike people that hold evil ideas, particularly to the extent they're important ideas that shape a big part of who a person is and or help to enable large movements of evil. That goes for the US, just as it does Russia, just as it does for anywhere else. And you can hold people morally responsible for the ideas they choose to believe in and the consequences that those beliefs have when they touch the real world in action.

It is easy to claim that sanctions against the US would have been legitimate when it is clear to most that they would have had little to no meaningful impact.

Ask someone like Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky why they stayed to fight and be jailed instead of fleeing. Fleeing doesn't help.

Russia hasn't been conquered since the most recent Russian Empire was formed. But regimes have fallen from within...

Its easy to say that but you have to look at the bigger picture.

It's easy to say "just punish the government / the oligarchs", but as most Westerners know, these people have become extraordinarily adept at hiding their money and distributing their assets. So it is very difficult indeed to target them per-se, hence you need to make it difficult to move money/assets around, sell assets and gain new money/assets.

You also need to look at the even bigger problem. How do we stop Russia attacking Ukraine ?

Nobody wants World War 3. Even the Americans who are usually keen to test out their latest toys are being remarkably disciplined about sitting on their hands.

So, you don't want to engage in a direct fight with the Russians, what's left on the table ?

Diplomacy ? Well, they've tried and are trying, but not much light at the end of that tunnel as of yet.

So your only option left is to accept that running a war needs two things, money and supplies. If both of those dry up then its only a matter of time before the war grinds to a halt too.

Hence you end up doing things that affect banks, the central bank, transport and logistics.

Regrettably its not just about targeting the military and the government, you have to target the supporting structures too (food, parts, consumables), hence you need to go big and go fast on sanctions.

Yes your average Russian will get caught up in the sanctions. Yes it will be difficult and unpleasant for families.

But frankly the alternative, full-blown war across Europe and the potential for nuclear bombs being used is unfathomably worse for everyone both inside Russia and outside.