Normally I like to not try and blame the people for the actions of their leadership, but frankly I've lost all faith in the ability for the majority of the Russian populace to engage in any kind of rational thinking at this point. They are part the problem.

A couple of years back they were out in protest against Putin rigging the vote to put himself back in power and I thought hey, finally, the Russian people are taking responsibility for their state, and trying to deal with their dictator.

Now two years on, an Olympic games, a bit of propaganda, creating a hate target in homosexuals to blame societies ills on (just as Hitler did with the Jews etc.), an attempted annexation of Crimea, and the resurrection of Stalin as a popular deity and suddenly Putin has 70% approval ratings again.

So whilst there are clearly a good number of Russians that still want him out, at this point they're a minority by quite a stretch. It really is the Russian people that are the problem - you might as well just alias the nation as Dumbfuckland now, because it really is a nation mostly full of dumb fucks given the approval they're now giving Putin based on his fascist, dictatorial policies. I thought it was bad enough that my nation, the UK is full of people so easily swayed by populism, bigotry, and general ignorance peddled by the media, but the idiocy of many of my countrymen appears to pale compared to those in Russia. At least whilst our population recently argued against striking Syria by a decent margin. In contrast, the Russians positively support annexing the whole of the Ukraine, not just Crimea with about 59% support on latest polls.

I wouldn't put your faith in the Russian people, they mostly seem to be an extremely fickle, easily swayed bunch and Putin controls the media, so swaying them his way appears trivial.