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In their defence it's a heavily controlled state where speaking out can literally land you in the gulag. Doesn't mean things are peachy, and I'm sure a fair few people are just drinking the coolaid, but it's something to consider.
When USSR ended, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were in very similar situation, politically and economically. Belarus got Lukashenko from the very beginning, he immediately bought off police and squashed all dissent. Ukraine had a wannabe dictator Yanukovich, bur kicked him out.
Russia got a big window of opportunity between Yeltsin and Putin, they could totally do their own Maidan, plus storming Kremlin is a historical Russian tradition.
No one cared.
They got a taste of Europe and civilized world, the young people got tech jobs with lots of money. Instead of fixing their own government, they mostly emigrated, and now formed a diaspora instead of learning the language and blabbering about mysterious Russian soul and wanking on WW2 photos.
One of Putin's fears is that Ukraine showed a clear scenario how to depose a dictator.
You know that somewhat famous story of the bridge being stolen?
Yeah, post Soviet Russia was a smash and grab dreamscape. If you could take it and keep it without getting shot, it became yours. A lot of oligarchs got started then. A lot more wannabes died in the process.
I don't know that story, actually, but I am intrigued now
A taste of civilized world? Russia is civilization now and has been for many thousands of years.
Not when you are forced to use dial-up internet when all your online friends had Ethernet or optic cable for years. That was the state of civilization between '90s and 2000.
Okay so by civilization we mean slightly more modern technology? That's fine, I just got a bit ticked off because Europeans have a very long-lasting tradition to label everyone they don't like as backwards savages, and it came off that way to me.
Harsh but true.
Heavily controlled state that kills or imprisons political opponents, and disappears or imprisons protesters even for holding a blank white paper on the streets. Russia has the same issue USA does. It's a gigantic country with spread out cities, with most money going to Moscow and St. Petersburg. It's extremely difficult to organize effective protests. Especially now that their internet is more walled off than the Great Firewall of China. It's one thing to have centralized, effective protests in smaller countries where driving to the capital is a couple of hours.
When the war started, there where those in Russia that did protest the war. You could see them getting picked up and dragged away.