That’s a valid concern, but I don’t think so. Some things to consider:
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
From the “After Putin: Lessons from Autocratic Leadership Transitions” paper: “Though authoritarianism typically continues when authoritarian leaders exit, one positive note is that repressive conditions tend to ease in the five-year period afterwards”.
There’s a difference between sabotage and terrorist tactics. The latter do not really work except in a “we will force you to spend a lot of money on security” sense. The former not just “sends a message”—more importantly, it directly denies resources and makes governing harder.
Additional viewpoint that might be relevant: if you believe the duration of the war to be mainly time-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day Putin dies or the day Ukraine gets a shipment of modern weapons”) instead of resource-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day there are no Russian volunteer soldiers anymore”) then each railway delay means some amount of civilian lives saved.
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
Have you looked at North Korea?
Do you know of any historical examples where governments being short of money led to less repression?
This post first says in the second paragraph that the group operates covertly. Then it follows up by saying in the third paragraph that brave people committed sabotage. That’s a plausibly deniable way to suggest that some of the money will lead to supporting sabotage.
Or it’s a misleading way to attract funding. The hard thing about sabotage is that it’s dangerous, not that it’s expensive. Either they are doing it, then publicly fundraising for it shows they have poor judgement and money they get will soon be confiscated by the government. Or they’re not doing it, then talking about it is (perhaps unintentionally) misleading. I think it’s the latter, because overwhelming majority of opposition activists are not capable of executing that kind of thing. On the other hand, I heard quite a few stories about Russian opposition activists stealing laptops, borrowing money and never returning etc. Not saying Russian opposition is unusually untrustworthy, but they are no more trustworthy than an average person. Meaning you should apply your regular amount of caution to check that you are not donating to a scam. And if you send money hoping they will be spent on X, even though no one actually promised that and officially money are spent on something else, that’s not even a scam. That’s you scamming yourself.
Could it push Russia to be even more totalitarian (the standard response of governments towards sabotage)?
That’s a valid concern, but I don’t think so. Some things to consider:
Resources are already stretched pretty thin with the actual war going on. There’s going to be a moment when there’s no money for repression machine. That wasn’t realistic before, but now, with various sanctions, it is.
From the “After Putin: Lessons from Autocratic Leadership Transitions” paper: “Though authoritarianism typically continues when authoritarian leaders exit, one positive note is that repressive conditions tend to ease in the five-year period afterwards”.
There’s a difference between sabotage and terrorist tactics. The latter do not really work except in a “we will force you to spend a lot of money on security” sense. The former not just “sends a message”—more importantly, it directly denies resources and makes governing harder.
Additional viewpoint that might be relevant: if you believe the duration of the war to be mainly time-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day Putin dies or the day Ukraine gets a shipment of modern weapons”) instead of resource-dependent (e.g. “everything will end the day there are no Russian volunteer soldiers anymore”) then each railway delay means some amount of civilian lives saved.
Have you looked at North Korea?
Do you know of any historical examples where governments being short of money led to less repression?
Money also doesn’t appear to be stretched thin: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/53559/did-the-russian-government-have-a-20-billion-euro-budget-surplus-in-the-first-has
I think this question is irrelevant, as the group in question almost certainly doesn’t do any sabotage.
This post first says in the second paragraph that the group operates covertly. Then it follows up by saying in the third paragraph that brave people committed sabotage. That’s a plausibly deniable way to suggest that some of the money will lead to supporting sabotage.
Or it’s a misleading way to attract funding. The hard thing about sabotage is that it’s dangerous, not that it’s expensive. Either they are doing it, then publicly fundraising for it shows they have poor judgement and money they get will soon be confiscated by the government. Or they’re not doing it, then talking about it is (perhaps unintentionally) misleading. I think it’s the latter, because overwhelming majority of opposition activists are not capable of executing that kind of thing.
On the other hand, I heard quite a few stories about Russian opposition activists stealing laptops, borrowing money and never returning etc. Not saying Russian opposition is unusually untrustworthy, but they are no more trustworthy than an average person. Meaning you should apply your regular amount of caution to check that you are not donating to a scam. And if you send money hoping they will be spent on X, even though no one actually promised that and officially money are spent on something else, that’s not even a scam. That’s you scamming yourself.