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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (758203)	3/1/2022 12:05:08 PM
From: Bruce L	2 Recommendations Recommended By DinoNavarre THE WATSONYOUTH Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793891

A. <<<Putin: "is generally well liked by ("Russians") and ....channels their thoughts and concerns...>>> You have repeated this meme twice in the last 2 weeks..... in almost identical words. I respect your opinion...but on this issue I have my own. Below, I'll post just a few notes I thought relevant on this issue and will document them upon request. A separate issue is what is a "Russian"? (There are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups in the 4000 mile-wide Russian Republic with a total of 156.8 million citizens. (ROSSTAT)) a. In both 2018 &2018 the BBC polled "Russians" and found trust in Putin had dropped sharply. A plurality of "Russians" approved of the protests against him then taking place in the country. b. In 2020, Alexi Kudrin, a former Minister of Finance calculated that since Putin has been in office the Russian economy has advanced only 1% a year, incredibly low given the economic collapse that took place after the fall of the USSR. c. In 2018, police arrested hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow protesting the rise in the social security eligibility age .... a breach of an earlier Putin promise. d. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, a prominent Putin critic, was shot in the back on a Moscow street -and killed - shortly after he left a radio station where he had accused Putin of launching a war on the Ukraine. e. In 2019, a Checken separatist was murdered in Berlin. German newspapers published "cell phone metadata" proving that it had been planned and executed by the Russian Security Service. f. In 2016, Putin summarily removed 3 governors and replaced them with members of his personal bodyguard. g. In 2016, the offices of Amnesty International in Moscow were summarily, without warning, locked and their electricity cut off. h. In 2018, M. Borodin, a newspaper critic of Putin, "mysteriously" fell from a 5th floor balcony. i. Navalny, a nationally known Russian critic of Putin, was poisoned with "Novichok," a poison known to have been developed by the Russians. He was treated in Germany but was arrested on "embezzlement" charges when he returned to Russia. j. In 2020, in the Siberian town of Kharbarovsk, tens of thousands of demonstrated - continuously for weeks- because of Putin's arrest of a popular mayor. k. Khodorkovsky in 2019 was planning to run against Putin for president but then was arrested on bogus charges . This arrest was intended as an implied threat and he was released and went to Germany where he spoke with reporters. Among other things he said that Russians "as a whole are alienated from politics as a result of so many years of not being able to influence (politics in Russian)." Putin thereafter filed murder charges against him. Khodorkovsky joked that he was charged with only one murder but Bill Browder was charged with multiple murders l. It is true that the U.S. was involved in the 2014 "Maidan" plot to remove a pro-Russian president of Ukraine. (And, I would argue, there were good humanitarian reasons for supporting this effort.) But Putin sent assassins into the Ukraine to murder those who opposed Russian control. Among these assassins was a T. Makhauri who was caught and admitted to the "wet" actions he had been sent to perform. Note: the Ukrainians also used assassinations to further their cause. The above is only a partial list. Can one argue that all of these facts and allegations are unknown to the "Russian" public and that this accounts for his being "well liked"? I don't believe it. Long time critics like Gary Kasparov (world chess champion) have been active for many years on the internet and Russia has not been impervious to negative data like this. As Khodorkovsky said, "Russians" are "alienated." IF PUTIN SUDDENLY DIED, IS IT RIGHTTHAT "THE NEXT GUY" WOULD BE JUST THE SAME? I don't believe so. The personality of a leader - e.g., Stalin vs Khrushchev or Brezhnev vs Yeltsin - can make a world of difference. When Stalin died in 1953, so many teary-eyed Russians hurried to Moscow to pay their respects that the KGB following SOP for "insurrections"... killed hundreds, perhaps as many as 1500.