Some thoughts/suggestions from a Russian friend.

[Beastly Boy]

17. The opposition in Russia is weak and ineffective.

Russian people largely share Putin's grandiose delusions of the glorious imperial Russia that can take on the democratic Europe on equal terms. The thousands of people being arrested in Moscow are not demonstrating for democracy, they are demonstrating against the war. Russia's history of democratic government is short, unlike its centuries old tradition of absolute despotism. The West appeals to the Russian people not because of its democracy, but because of its prosperity, and they generally don't quite get the critical connection between the two.

To topple Putin's regime, which will take more than just getting rid of Putin, the West, and Ukraine in particular, are doing exactly what they need to do: isolate the regime culturally and especially economically, and make sure that Putin's ambitions of making Russia a superpower again fail miserably and end with his humiliation. These, and not appeals for democratic principles, are the two most effective means to affect the sentiment of large portions of the Russian people. Once this is accomplished, the Russian people will be persuasively reminded of the connections between autocracy and misery versus democracy and prosperity. Only then the political reformation has a decent chance of succeeding in Russia.

However strongly the entire concept of a democratic opposition to Putin's regime appeals to me, I am skeptical of their effectiveness. The system is heavily rigged against them. Only when the system begins to crumble under the weight of evident and demonstrable failures to achieve Putin's delusional ambitions, does the opposition have a chance to affect change.