>And let’s hope that the leaders in the west will spend money on rebuilding Russia and it’s economy, rather than focussing on punitive reprisals, if that day comes.
I believe the Allied forces learned that lesson the hard way after the experiences of the Great War and the Second World War. After the first, punitive reparation terms were forced on Germany to make the country pay for its aggression. Result? A festering sense of grievance that was seized on and manipulated by a certain short Austrian painter who twisted it into a narrative of "the whole world is against us, it's so unfair".
After the latter conflict, wiser heads realized the truth of "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" and the emphasis was on rebuilding and getting the country back to a functioning state as quickly as possible - Marshall Plans, Berlin airlifts and so on (and by the way, for a lovely riff on this concept, do watch the 1959 Peter Sellers film "The Mouse that Roared" - "there is no more profitable undertaking for any country in the world... than to declare war on the United States and to be defeated"). The result that time was a Germany that whilst still repentant for the enormity of what it had caused, was grateful to get a second chance to join the ranks of civilized nations.
Not, by the way, that any of this is relevant to the current conflict. Despite the hysterical paranoid dribblings of Putin, Prigozhin and his cronies, I don't for one instant think that anyone supporting Ukraine wants to attack, much less destroy, Russia.
After all, Putin is doing a wonderful job of that all on his own.