Sanctions are a patronizing form of punishments that have hardly ever been effective and are hard to maintain over a long period of time. Take Iran, even when there is a huge international block working together against Iran, the people suffer yet the government continues but just in secret to develop their nuclear program. And if anything it spurred Iran's warlike actions in the region.

To do it because of Navalny would just be a out of a wish to punish, not out of knowledge it would actually change the situation. And is it the role of the West to dish out punishment?

Besides it would just be used by Putin to empower the internal story of the threat of the West & NATO.

Indeed, drain the country of anyone of value while enabling better lives for these people. Extend comfortable retirement plans to anyone responsible for maintaining Russian nuclear hardware to drain the institutional knowledge needed for maintenance and operations; use this information to prepare to disarm it. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is currently the only thing holding the world back from taking aggressive action. Defang the cobra.

I'm totally for it and I will support any Russian that leaves their home country to withdraw their support for the war in any way I can - and have already done so, so this is not just words.

It would be a grand and very effective move if done in a major way.

Half-done it could be very dangerous - getting many well-connected and affluent people with nothing against in principle to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but who don't like the practical consequences for themselves.

>Like accepting Russian refugees, lots of them

Russians tried to do that. Got labeled murders and told in words and actions to 'get back to their shithole' or outright to just die.

Quite surprising, that wasn't viewed favourably by other Russians.

Meanwhile, some Russian emigres are actually returning because the sanctions, and general public distrust, are making life quite hard for them in the West.

As a Russian emigre myself, I can say that when you are calling for sanctions, you're calling for people like me to get screwed. Putin and his cronies don't seem too much damaged, on the other hand.