It may seem like something completely new and astonishing for you, but there are places where you cannot only criticise your leaders while drinking, you - prepare to be mind-blown - can actually oppose their politics in public without being poisoned, killed or sent to prison. You may not even believe this, but there is even a chance that you can ... sit down, get ready for this... vote to change them if you think they got it wrong! No, I am not kidding you, those places exist!
Yeah, I know. I live in the city where I was born and I like everything here in general. The Russian people in general are usually completely apolitical and well decentralized, Putin does not tell me how to live directly, and his policies generally suit me well. It is always possible to do something better, but it is not necessary for this to gather in a crowd and arrange a rally about it. Here Ukraine jumped on the Maidan, and it brought a lot of happiness to it? I am a crypto-anarchist and I try not to get into politics without a good reason, so there are more important things.
Ukrainians are speaking of this as their (second) war of independence. Putin has managed to create a national unity spirit on a country that is varied and socially a bit chaotic (in the best sense).
I am glad that Ukraine felt its national spirit during the operation - this means that it will remain an independent sovereign state. You just have to change the national idea from "kill the Russians" to something more appropriate in a decent European civilized society, where Ukraine itself is so eager. It seems Ukrainian refugees in Europe are no longer very welcome.