y'all need to stop pretending you're in lord of the rings

There are.

Please understand there are many voices in Russia, and many are furious and terrified.

Yes there are

I think there have been several attempts, but their government is cracking down on protests very swiftly. Many of them also have restricted information/are being outright gaslighted.

We don't have much visibility over what's going on in Russia that's not government controlled, but it seems to me a lot of people over there are against this war.

https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally...

EDIT: https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1497944821679501313

Yes there are! Practically in every major city[0]. Moreover, they are threatened with up to 20 years of prison, so this has much more value than armchair criticism. Many of them are young people, risking all their youth[1].

[0] eg: https://www.rferl.org/a/yekaterinburg-protest-russia-invasio...

[1] Look at this girl arrested on the first photo, looks like a middle school student: https://www.e1.ru/text/gorod/2022/02/25/70468868/

Protesting in Russia against Putin takes some balls, and yet many are doing it

If I were in Russia, I don't know what I'd do. I tend to be the fiery type but the outbreak of war is a terrible time to disappear for my family.

Russian state media has cast the spectre of treason over anyone protesting the war. [1]. Even before that long prison sentences were common for even peaceful non-seditious protests. [2]

Despite this, a couple thousand Russians have publicly protested and been arrested. [3] It's both sad and brave. Since protests are illegal people go on "walks" with the crowd. Someone will hold up a little placard saying "No war!" and get immediately dragged off by the police. That's the allowed degree of protest.

The ones not brave enough to do that still have my sympathy.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/24/russian-po...

[2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/05/russian-court-sentences-...

[3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-protest-arrests-1.63629...

Oh come on. Let us not be so intellectually dishonest here. We are not reddit.

There are many Russians who just want to live a normal life. NATO coming close to the borders of Russia is causing their leadership to go crazy and we want the civilians to suffer because of this?

If you are not raising your voice, you're the problem is the worst argument ever and reeks of privilege.