--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote: But Chris and I agree that Putin's regime is oppressive. --
Actually I don't agree that Putin's "regime" is oppressive. Just who is it oppressing? The National Bolshevik Party? The oligarchs who now have to pay taxes? Not ordinary people. Them, it is liberating. (Don't say "the Chechens," you really don't want to go there.)
I think I see a misperception on your part. I think you have acquired the idea popular among the Western popular media that all power flows from the Kremlin, more specifically, from one man, and that therefore if there is, say, vote fraud in Promor'e or a political assassination in Dagestan or police beat people up in Petersburg or a sparrow falls in Ingushetia, it somehow must in some way be the result of the Kremlin. That's not how it works.
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