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> Punishing civilians for the actions of its government is absolutely insane and will backfire badly.

That's what sanctions do. That's what military responses do. There's no real way out of the box. If a country responds forcefully to an aggressor's actions, the aggressor's civilians will pay a large part of the price.

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Not really. Civilians are certainly affected by sanctions. But government itself, oligarches, people with power are affected much more. Also making population unhappy gradually is a good motivation to make some changes. But here it will affect general population in the first place. It will remove ability to get other side of the news. Cutting the internet is in a lot of cases what government actually wants (and does). Right now they shutting down sources of information (fb, yt, twitter). And here they suggest to shut it down completely. Russia government will probably thank them for this.

A measured response is appropriate. Actions can be scaled so that if the same thing is applied back to you for a fraction of a transgression, then the public can figure out who's overreacting.

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