What a load of bollocks.

"made things extremely uncomfortable for Justin Trudeau"

...and also for the 1 million residents of Ottawa who were subject to continuous horn honking for days. I don't think it justifies the government's extremely heavy-handed response, but pretending those protests were stopped purely because of Trudeau's PR concerns is just plain ignorant.

"Numerous companies have pulled out of the Russian market [...] in an attempt to show support for Ukraine or pressure the Russian government into submission, to be honest I’m not exactly clear"

Why even comment, then?

There are several reasons to do this:

1. As we've seen repeatedly, Russia has a penchant for taking hostages, hand out fines for companies not toeing the line, etc. It's not rational to stay in business in a country where your company or your employees could be taken advantage of by the goverment to make a point (and I'm not talking freezing bank accounts; we all know more or less what goes down in Russian prisons).

2. By operating in Russia, companies are supporting the Russian economy, which in turn supports the war (both through taxes paid and through economic growth in general).

3. As you mentioned, it shows support for Ukraine. I'm not sure what companies would have to gain from pressuring the Russian government into submission... I feel like you only brought this up to put a thumb on the scale without committing yourself to an obviously bogus claim.

"stealing from and cutting off services to regular Russians doesn’t hurt the government"

YES, IT DOES. Imagine how much pressure would be placed on the Biden admin if Americans were (as you put it) 'canceled' over the actions of Joe Biden. The fact that you missed this obvious point makes me wonder what the hell is rattling around inside your skull, because it's clearly not a brain.

The lives of Ukrainians are more important than the economic comfort of Russians who, by and large, supported the invasion.