Mass Protests in Russia. Is this the beginning of the end of Putin?

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  • Russia's main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has been arrested at an anti-corruption protest he organised in the capital, Moscow.

    Thousands of people joined rallies nationwide, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations.

    Putin still enjoys widespread support in Russia, no idea why. But over a 100 protests took place today in towns and cities all over Russia, can the gangster regime of Putin last another generation?

    The reports today of the wealth than Putin and chums have built up mirrors that of the old soviet leaders. When the USSR collapsed, we all saw the lifestyles of these scumbags, but in Russia at least, they just replaced one load of gangsters with another.

    Can it carry on like this, or will the country implode at some point? Perhaps Putin might throw Medvedev to the mob at some point to protect himself.

    The more Putin feels threatened at home domestically, the more dangerous he'll become on the world stage as a way to divert attention.

    I'm glad we don't share a border with Russia and I feel sorry for those that do.

  • This is why I believe that politics can't solve problems any more, if it ever really could. It is now as bad as absolute monarchy or various theocratic and secular tyrannies. Once they are in they build up a "swamp" filled with their buddies and contacts and this becomes an elite that no one can breach. You get in if you have the credentials and if not, you are either assassinated or you are taken down by skulduggery.

    Probably why few want to go in for politics. Those who do are either part of that system or they are so gullible and naive that they end up contaminated, disillusioned, or dead.

  • True, Russia is a scary place. Most places emerging from oppressive regimes just get more oppression and the rise of gangsterism in politics, apart from everywhere else in society. (I speak from experience, :()

  • I'm waiting to see what happens to this opposition leader who was arrested yesterday. Presumably he'll be released but as he wants to run for president next year, I am expecting he'll have a "accident" at some point.

    Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been jailed for 15 days for resisting police orders during mass protests on Sunday.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39404985
    ====

    Well, they've stuck him in jail, but he's alive. For now.

  • I don't think Russians are blind to Putin's negatives but they have fallen for his propaganda that the US and to a lesser extent the EU are responsible for any problems and that Putin is the best man to fight back. In reality Putin is behind most of their problems. I worked there a couple of years ago and everyone I met was a slightly reluctant Putin supporter. This was a long way from Moscow though where you felt they hadn't moved beyond the communist mindset very much.

  • I do have some sympathy for the Russian people. They've had and still have terrible leaders and they've never been free yet.

    All the major media is controlled by Putin and we can't really imagine what it is like to turn on a news channel and only hear propaganda. Well, actually I can a little bit as we have Russia Today here.

    If the majority of Russians have jobs and food in their stomachs, they won't cause too much fuss for Putin. But his gangster regime is sucking the lifeblood and wealth out of the country and I think its only a matter of time before the regime, the country and perhaps other countries, implode (or explode).

  • At least 29 people have been arrested during opposition protests in Moscow, the second Sunday in succession to see such demonstrations.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39473182
    ====

    Although nowhere near the scale of last weeks protests, there have been some more in Russia today. It will be interesting to see if the momentum builds on this, or if it dies out.

  • More than 250 people have been arrested as supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny held protests in some 80 cities across Russia, reports say.

    They were demanding he be allowed to stand in 2018 presidential elections.

    The Russians aren't stupid and know they don't live in a democratic country.

    After the mass protests earlier in the year, there is now another wave of them.

    If the Russians think that Putin will allow a serious candidate to stand against him in next year's elections, they are deluded. Putin will stay in power until he is either too elderly or he's removed by force.

    Will this escalate? Mass protests one minute, revolution the next.

    Happy 65th, Mr Putin. :)

  • Russians still prefer Putin. I think outside of Moscow you'll struggle to find too many people that are against him. Having said that I wouldn't say they love him either, they just dislike the opposition a lot more (partly thanks to Putin backed media...).

  • Protests in 80 cities, Hoxton. Not just Moscow.

    Compared to Russia's overall population, the numbers in these protests are still relatively small, but they're not going away and are growing.

    The Putin controlled media is a big problem. His main instrument to poison the minds of the young.

  • The people wont back down, once they have stood up. It takes enormous courage to stand up as the punishment is severe when the dictator is only there by the strength of his own security forces and propaganda.

    We live in changing times and people are starting to rebel against imperial structures and their pompous little emperors (and empresses). Which is why the EU will also become a listing ship in time, if it hasn't already begun to sink.

    There will always be large numbers of entrenched support because they think they are getting something out of the dictatorship that they would simply die without if this left the stage. They are wrong, but it takes a while to discover this and often revolutions go ahead anyway on the strength of a smaller number of heroic dissenters. Can take some time to accomplish, but nothing lasts forever. Even Zimbabwe's regime will fall. It isn't divine, it isn't there by divine dispensation. It is subject to the same rot that erodes everything. It will eventually go. Many may not live to see it, but it will eventually go and so will all the other power groups that are struggling to cling on.

    When the new queen in a hive emerges, she kills the old queen if the old queen does not take her retinue and leave. As in Nature, so too in human nature.

  • A 17-year-old has died of his wounds after detonating explosives in an office of Russia's FSB federal security service in the north-western city of Arkhangelsk, officials say.

    A CCTV image of the suspect emerged soon afterwards, along with a message he allegedly posted on social media just before the blast.

    Although the authenticity of the message posted on an anarchist chat group has not been confirmed, the user identifies himself as an anarcho-communist and claims the FSB "fabricates cases and tortures people".

    I don't think something like this has ever happened before in Russia. Most Russians are terrified of the FSB and stay as far away from them as possible, but not this kid. Could this be the start of some kind of push-back against Putin's autocratic rule, or just a one off event?

  • Putin ally warns opposition protesters: We won't allow anarchy

    MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, told opposition activists on Tuesday he would not allow their protest movement to plunge the Russian capital into anarchy and accused them of plotting mass disorder.

    Sobyanin was speaking after police rounded up more than 1,000 people in Moscow on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying Putin’s tight grip on power.

    This happened after Monday events:

    Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader and Putin critic poisoned by chemical substance, says lawyer

    Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, was poisoned in jail by “an unknown chemical substance”, according to his lawyer, Olga Mihailova.

    The Kremlin critic was discharged from hospital on Monday and returned back to prison under guard, his doctor said.

    Mr Navalny was arrested as he left his home in Moscow on Wednesday, ahead of a demonstration calling for free and fair elections.

    The tighter the grip that Putin imposes on his own people, the faster he will hasten his own demise. Trying to kill opponents in prison with poison doesn't help his cause either.

  • Remember when the USSR collapsed and we got a tour of all the palaces and places that the Communist rulers had. I wonder how many palatial homes Putin has at his disposal??

    If I were in Ukraine, Georgia or anywhere near the Russia border, I would be getting nervous now. When Putin needs to shore up support at home in the face of mounting dissent, he starts wars.

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