The people of Russia are not responsible for this and the leadership does not care about it's people. He needs to target what hurts Putin, not his people.

Inevitably the people of Russia are suffering unfairly for Putin's war. One would hope that the repercussions of the war would ultimately cause Putin to fall. But I don't know by what mechanism Russians could rebel, no matter how dissatisfied they become.

We can't even figure out how to stop Trump's wars and madness, with much of our democracy still intact. But I'm sure if some adversary figured out how to attack Americans for the things Trump has done, Trump wouldn't care.

but I differ on who is to blame

So let the Russians live to see another day, unlike what they are doing to Ukrainians.

Lets be clear about who "they" are. Putin and his chronies, not the Russian people.
The Russain people are not free, including freedom of the press. They don't have real information. I would contend that half of Trump's support comes from people who were fooled by Trump's lies and propaganda (the ones who aren't despicable enough to actually support his policies). Only in the US, we are responsible for choosing unreliable news sources. Russians have no choice and haven't been educated--in fact have been mis-educated in critical thinking for generations.

i also question polling that claims to know what percentage of Russians actually support Putin in a country where you can't freely state opposition. And where a pretty large number of the opposition has fled of necessity in recent years--hell--throughout it's whole history.

When I say Russians are suffering unfairly I am not ignoring who the aggressor is. i just think both sides are suffering for the actions of one war criminal.

As for stopping Trump, I understand that Republicans in Congress can stop him. Yes, there might be more Dems can do but without a majority it's just not that simple. A lot of brave people have been trying.

The guys "just following order" knew what they were being told to do.
There are a lot of Russians who just don't know what is going on. There are Russians in prison for trying to tell the people what is going on. There are Russians fleeing the country because they know enough and don't want to fight in the war. What more do you expect them to be doing? What does "due diligence" look like in a totalitarian state? Any organization attempting to effect change or supply valid information is infiltrated and destroyed. Peaceful demonstrations have no effect on Putin, and overthrow by force is hopeless unless someone high up in the military has a change of heart. Then the prospects for such a person being democratic leaning is slight.

Then there are the polls. A high percentage of them are conducted by the state. Even the independent ones face a population afraid to openly express opposition. Door to door polls, for example, show more support for Putin than phone polls. I wonder why. Are there any truly safe anonymous polls that the Russians trust? And we'll never have a poll showing where support would be if there was freedom of the press.

We can't even get half of Americans to do the due diligence of changing the channel from Fox. Republicans in Congress are afraid to go against Trump for a single vote, and they get death threats and then get voted out of office if they do. I think we need to figure out how to clean up our own much easier house before we start telling Russians what they should be doing.

You are talking about what Putin is doing and what Russians are doing who carry out his orders.
I'm talking about the Russians who are not in power, who you claim are 70% in support of Putin, not doing "due diligence" to know what is going on, and somehow not doing what it takes to overthrow Putin or otherwise change his behavior.

The issue here is whether bombing civilians will have any effect on the outcome of the war or any of the atrocities you list above. I think that would be comparable to someone attacking the United States to get Trump to stop all of his warmongering, and focussing their attacks on the civilian infrastructure of Blue states--because they cannot distinguish between Americans who support his destructive policies and those who oppose them.

I'm not saying we are as powerless as the Russian population--yet--but neither are we causing the bombing nor is our well-being of concern to Trump. Nor would destroying our lives make us more likely or able to contain Trump or return to a democratic order.

Yes, you said you want to destroy civilian infrastructure but not civilians. My bad. I'm not sure you can do one without the other, but I accept your intention on that.

I don't agree with destroying civilian infrastructure. Civilians losing power, water, and whatever else such infrastructure includes affects not only quality of life, but life itself.

I agree with destroying military infrastructure, and any resources Putin needs to wage this war.

I understand that sometimes these things overlap, and what hurts Putin will often hurt civiians. i agree that the emergency is such that Ukraine must risk that.

I'm glad Ukraine is no longer hobbled by the earlier policy that said it couldn't attack Russia at all because it was using arms from the USA. Good for them creating their own technology that no one else can tell them how to use.