Could you imagine if countries wouldn't work the USA because of things our president did?
What makes you think that hasn't happened?
It's a big world out there and people make all kinds of decisions.
In any case, whether you work Russians or not right now, time to acknowledge this situation is a little different.
This is:
1. Naked and unjustified aggression. Putin's rationale's are patently dishonest ("Nazis"? Really?)
2. Putin working to eradicate and erase Ukraine's culture. That's right up there with the Taliban. This isn't quite genocide, but it is its first cousin. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read up on it. It is, to put it mildly, not nice. It is
very totalitarian.
3. An attempt to reestablish the Soviet Empire ('cause that's what the Warsaw pact really was). Nobody wants it but Putin and his fans. Nobody. This is 19th century era political thinking in a nuclear age. Putin does not hide that this is his dream. Ukraine would be but the first of many if he gets his way here.
4. Threatening to spill over into a wider war. Just today, a Russian warplane ran into an American drone. Wars have been started over less.
Wars in Europe are a little more equal than wars other places. They have a way of dragging us in whether we want to be dragged in or not.
We tried to stay out of Kosovo. We didn't. We even tried to stay out of WW II. Well, that lasted two years. We tried to stay out of WW I also. That lasted maybe three or four.
What's going on here, whatever your politics, is dangerous as all get out.
My own position earlier on was to withhold working them because I thought Putin was very successful in his propaganda and the Russian people were clueless. I took what I said was a faint hope of piercing that veil.
Well, a lot of criticism of the war has crept in, so I don't mind working a few Russians here and there. Now they know, or could easily know, something like the truth. So, it's a lot like the cold war and I did work Russians during the Cold War, after all.
But, I'm not particularly keen on working them, either.