True. But who will remove Putin from power if not the Russian people? They won't do so without suffering a lot, they have been used to criminal leaders for more than a century.
I am not saying it's the fault of individual people. But all there governments have been incredibly inhuman basically for centuries. It certainly affects the society.
Of course in Russia the situation is much worse at this point, but Russians know that they can get back their money if they elect a less corrupt / aggressive leader.
I don't think there are any clear opposition candidates in Russia. They have been silenced, imprisoned, nearly poisoned. So even if there were an election without massive fraud I doubt many Russians would know whom to vote for.
I'm saying there hasn't been such a thing, and that means we don't have any good idea what that number would really be.
But I would not be too surprised if were similar as in the US. 50% vote for Trump.
How many of them believed that Putin would start a aggression to erase whole country from the map? Very few. As still the vast majority of the people in Ukraine did not believe it a week ago. And many European leaders either. Such wars have not existed in Europe since Hitler and not many believed they would return any time soon.