This ugly line of thinking reminds me of the post war years here in Norway where Germans would forever be held collectively accountable for the crimes of the Nazi regime even if they were born long after it fell apart.

People use such rational to excuse their own prejudice. Following such logic we give ourselves a license to generalize. We can be lazy. No need to treat people as unique individuals.

It is all to easy to point fingers of all one has ever known is living in a free society were you can protest without repercussions.

Many have protested in Russia and paid the price for it. And even in a democracy large protests seldom get anywhere. Look at the large protests against police brutality in the US. How deeply ironic to see people protesting police brutality constantly getting beat up by police.

Of course nothing happened because there were far too many people who did not have a problem with protesters getting beat up.

If the US which is a democracy cannot fix any of its core problems then why should Russia be able to? US elections are essentially rigged by gerrymandering and voter suppression practices. Yet, despite free speech and freedom to protest these problems have lingered for hundreds of years.

Russia in contrast has zero democratic traditions to build on. There institutions have always been weak.