Putin is the enemy. Every Russian is not.
Blaming all Russians for Putin's war is like blaming all Chinese people for COVID-19.
The other day I read an article in the Washington Post, and then I read the comments section.
Yascha Mounk’s article certainly wasn’t the problem. He made the very reasonable point that we shouldn’t rush to hold individual Russians responsible for what its increasingly unhinged, bloodthirsty dictator is doing to Ukraine:
Vladimir Putin’s cruel war in Ukraine must be forcefully resisted, including with tough sanctions. But it is important to remember a simple truth: Although we are waging a righteous battle against Vladimir Putin, we are not at war with the Russian people. Acting as if we are is as immoral as it is counterproductive.
The Russian people have, in many ways, been Putin’s first victims. It is they who cannot replace their president at the ballot box or speak out against him without fear of terrifying consequences. It is they who are paying the price for two decades of corruption and repression. And it is they who will see their living standards plummet over the next months.
Putin undoubtedly enjoys widespread support. But over the past week, many Russians have found the courage to criticize his assault on Ukraine, often incurring tremendous risk in the process.
Thousands have already been arrested for protesting the war. About 7,000 Russian scientists and academics have signed an open letter demanding “an immediate halt to all military operations directed against Ukraine.” Similar petitions are circulating among teachers, doctors and many other groups. What appears to be the biggest one, on Change.org, has attracted over a million signatories.
Even more Russians share these sentiments but lack the bravery or the opportunity to speak out. That probably includes some of the conscripted soldiers who have been ordered to commit deeply immoral acts — and risk their own lives — by a dictator who has been in power since before they were born.
[…]
Heavy sanctions will unavoidably impose significant costs on ordinary Russians. But since they are necessary to assist Ukraine and weaken Putin, they are morally defensible. It is right to stop doing business with Russian companies, to seize the property of oligarchs who got rich thanks to their connections to the Kremlin, and to ban sports teams from competing in international competitions under the Russian flag.
But none of this is a reason to punish individuals for the accident of their birth or to cast Russia’s rich culture under a general pall of suspicion. Dictators do not speak for everybody who shares their nationality. And so we must avoid punishing ordinary Russians who neither have close links to the Kremlin nor represent their country in an official capacity. It would be a serious injustice to stop Russian academics from giving talks in the West, to subject every Russian living outside the country to an ideological litmus test or to cancel performances by Russian artists based purely on their nationality.
This should resonate with readers of a liberal-leaning rag like the Post, right? Yeah, not so much:
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