I often think of Vera & hope she remains safe from Putin's gangsters.

..

Yes Vera is a pistol.

& the memorable Yakov

Where did  you get hs videos from - the first one  you posted before.  In a dictatorship like you claim the speakers and the maker of the video's would be in jail.    Are as you claim people are afraid to speak out against the Regime.       

In any country there are people against Government and in some countries it is worse than in others.   I bet that in the USA there are many if not more such dissidents than there are in Russia.   So are there in Europe and all over the world..

In some countries the responses of Governments are worse than in others.   The key normally s which countries weaponize their judicial and police services against opponents and to what degree that occurs.   In dictatorial countries the responses ae more oppression than in others.    Very little is known about Russia in the world at large.     In the USSR  there were for many decades severe oppression by the crude Communist Regime and approximately 52 million people murdered by the Regime and everybody in the rest of the world opposed that.    In China the murder toll by the Communist Regime was far worse with  more than 75 000 000 people murdered by th Regime.

The crude dictatorships are obviously worse oppressors of opposition and at one time whatever reports about what happened in countries were reports that were indicative of extreme oppression and destruction of human rights.   In handling  situations in such countries at present is much more difficult to understand.        

In Russia making up 16% of the total land areas in the world outside of Moscow and St Petersburg and perhaps Ekaterinberg and Irkutsk and he Crimea very little is known about the Russian people.    Isolation from the rest of the world for many centuries have led to a very poor understanding of its people and what is really happening in the country.   Also what the people are like and what their views on issues are.   

In fact we perhaps know less about present day Russia than ever before.   I spent a month in Russia and found that the people are very helpful and friendly - the Hollywood image of Russian people were entirely different from what I found,   They were at the time just out of the Communist Regime and tried to copy the American Constitution to get a freer country in place.   

Under Communism oppression was notorious and crude - but even for decades after 1917 there were people who believed Father Tzar still rules because of isolation through massive distances.   The only effective opposition was in joining and supporting the Russian Orthodox Church as a symbol of opposition to the  Government and at a time when religion became less of a factor in politics in Europe and the USA - it became strengthened in the USSR.

 Because of those factors what we know about Russia is very limited and in recent years based on renewed propaganda in the media in the rest of the world.     The fact is the Russians through their history and even under the Communists became more and more related to their language, culture and history than the west was  and still is.     The West took the issue of Russia after the fall of Communism in 1991 a different route when it came to Russia.    The first initiative was to enrich individuals who looted resources of the country like happened with individuals - one of whom you quoted on site.   

Be it as it may the country changed in many respects.    In Russia farming in 1984 produced the same volumeof food as was  produced in 1914 and that caused starvation and food shortages in the USSR,    Even Gorbachev said two of his brothers died of starvation under Stalin.    Russia went the other way since 1991 and privatized farm ownership and started recruiting farmers worldwide to bring expertise relating to food production.   Many SA farmers are presently farming in Russia and it became the biggest food exporters in the world.   

Many EU countries became dependent on Russia for major sources of for instance their gas, oil needs and food imports.    What happened in Ukraine which ultimately led to war and now is based on propaganda is poorly understood in the West.    Russia did away with slave labour camps by 1977 - the infamous Gulag Archipello  -  but instead adopted after 1991 an extremely different approach.    

In the Western Countries history and culture became less important and often under attack by the so-called Woke Culture that took over in the last twenty years, while nationalism remains strong in Russia.    Russia became more western orientated only in the 17th century and that met with opposition in rural areas.  Perter the Great and Catherine the Great played a major role in that - but at the same time central Government grew - but in view of the massive size of the country was in fact ruled by local Governors which were more or less repressive depending on whom were the Governors.   An example was Tolstoy’s grandfather who were for years Governor of  Kazan.    Some were cruel and oppressive others were not.

Be it as it may Russia became a major military force in Europe and in the 7 years war in alliance with  France even captured  Berlin.   After Catherine the Great became empress in 1762 she wanted to free the serfs and could not due to opposition by the aristocracy - but she nevertheless started the first schools in Europe for girls and the first country where juries were introduced  in Europe being in many respects influenced by Voltaire,   After that Russia was the main player in destroying Napoleon who foolishly invaded Russia with an army of 600 000 soldiers and left the country with 38 000 soldiers.    

Russia became a country ruled by weak emperors and it ended serfdom in 1861 - that is before the ending of slavery in the USA.    In the end the emperors became more aligned with the West and intermarriage with western royal families became the rule.   When they asked Prince Philip about a potential visit to the USSR his response was he will not go to Russia since the Communists murdered half of his ancestry after 1917.   Prince Michael of Kent was in a similar position.   When the bones of the Tsar and his family was discovered in a disused mine in Ekaterinberg in the 1991 DNA testing was done and Prince Michael was one of the decendants who provided samples for the tests.   He also became a world authority on the Russian History and Culture.

Now back to the present situation - frankly speaking I do not believe that Putin should have accepted the third term election and should have bowed out of politics after this year.   He did much to modernize Russia from the repressive regimes and the initial incompetence of the successors of the Soviet Regime.   The situation was poisoned by two issues over the past 20 years and those were both after 2014 - when the USA caused a coup in 2014 in Kiev and in 2015 by the Russian Hoax stories published in western media as to Putin and Trump collusion.   Over the four year period anti-Russian  propaganda became standard in the Western Media.   The fact that the collusion stories were based on lies made matters worse.    It created a degree of hatred ocf Russia in the USA and their NATO allies that lead to the Ukraine War.

Is Putin at present a worse oppressor of hu8man rights than the USA?   That answer is questionable.   In the USA the Biden Administration went left and extremely so and the control of the media is now the norm in the USA.   Media propaganda became anti-democratic in the USA and Western Europe  and any opposition to the leftists Governments in Europe and the USA  became associated by he media with Fascism.

It is not sure how many political prisoners there are in Russia at present – what is known is that there are about 400 such prisoners that has been in jail without trials for near to four years without being tried by the courts.  The Western Media blame the KGB of being repressive – but ignore the fact that according to the FIS Court there have been at least 278 000 illegal investigations of opponents to the present regime in the USA.   In the USA the Justice Department and related services have been weaponized against opposition.   While  Trump is accused of having dictatorial ambitions the present Biden Administration is implementing dictatorship in the USA.   When the Supreme Court takes decisions against the Government the Biden try and intimidate judges by not implementing the law banning such demonstrations at the home of Jutices with the Democrats  organizing it.

While there is no evidence of starvation in Russia – there is plenty of evidence that 49 000 000 people suffer from food insecurity in the USA.  

What I am driving it that pro-war and antidemocratic propaganda is the nor in the west and there is vey little known about what is really the attitude of the Russian people.   Traditionally Russians hate wars since it led to great suffering by the Russian people – but they also hate oppression of Russian people in  other countries – especially also in Ukraine.    Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia joined NATO and although the Russians objected to it – they kept to their constitutions protecting all people – also the ethnic Russians living in those countries.     In the case the Ukraine constitution was destroyed in 2014 and the people the Obama Administration decided to appoint in the Ukraine Government was based on hat red of Russia and all Russians – especially also those living in Eastern Ukraine.   People in opposition to the War are apparently not as numerous as the media pretend it to be.

The answer is simple – a negotiated peace treaty is essential for restoring peace in Europe.   The USA Government is not interested  in peace negotiations and is promoting war – while the media pretends that opposition to Putin is much more widespread than it really is.