Hardware

Whoever comes in after Putin will probably be of the same mind and possibly be even more extreme.

Unfortunately most "Westerners" don't understand this at all. And I am not talking "average joe", just look at Merkel or Steinmeier.

Some of it is of course corruption and hypocrisy, but there is strong undercurrent of ignorance of both history and nature of russian "culture" in the west.

Probably, but in the best case, a change of leadership might at least give them an excuse to pull out of the money sinks they have in Ukraine and restore the territories. Worst case... could be really bad.

I think most analysts and leaders actually do have what you say in mind, but no amount of expertise can provide a better answer or remove that risk so we are just managing it and doing everything slowly.