After 20 years in power, Putin looks weaker than ever

[Odinson]

It is as if the russians dont give a shit about your feelings.

[Odinson]

They also neglect your american vegan needs..

[Anonymous]

Russia can be a hostile working environment for an american or canadian..





Lewd comments... Wrong pronouns... Whistling..





You know... The worst shit you can imagine.

Central America is like that too.

[Odinson]

I was just joking..



But the truth is that american employees complain about a lot of stuff..





Its because their justice system grants these huge pay-outs.

[Anonymous]

I was just joking..



But the truth is that american employees complain about a lot of stuff..





Its because their justice system grants these huge pay-outs.

Do they, I don't know.

[Gaon]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

I didn't know that.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Do they have mayors declaring cities sanctuaries in defiance of the law? Do they have regional governments offering them taxpayer funded services like some US srltates do?

[Gaon]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Do they have mayors declaring cities sanctuaries in defiance of the law? Do they have regional governments offering them taxpayer funded services like some US srltates do?

Russians would never tolerate illegal immigrants staying at their expense. Authorities relax enforcement in a few industries that is hard to find workers. But, as seoubro said in another thread South Korea occasionally cracks down on illegal immigration, Russia does the same when illegal immigrants become a burden on Russians.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Do they have mayors declaring cities sanctuaries in defiance of the law? Do they have regional governments offering them taxpayer funded services like some US srltates do?

Russians would never tolerate illegal immigrants staying at their expense. Authorities relax enforcement in a few industries that is hard to find workers. But, as seoubro said in another thread South Korea occasionally cracks down on illegal immigration, Russia does the same when illegal immigrants become a burden on Russians.

I don't like illegal immigration period. But, it's not completely insane like the American progs want.

[@realAzhyaAryola]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Good to know. I've just never met anyone who has expressed desire to move to Russia for good. That is all.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Good to know. I've just never met anyone who has expressed desire to move to Russia for good. That is all.

Most people don't think of Russia as a nation that accepts a lot of immigrants, but many of us are wrong..



Many people don't think that about Sweden either.

[Gaon]

It's hard to say if his leadership has overall been positive or negative for his country..



Gaon can probably answer that better than the rest of us.

Why aren't people wanting to migrate to Russia if it's better there than in the USA?

Russia has a lot of immigrants. Gaon will tell you that.

Russia has about ten million legal immigrants and about four million illegal migrants.

Good to know. I've just never met anyone who has expressed desire to move to Russia for good. That is all.

Most people don't think of Russia as a nation that accepts a lot of immigrants, but many of us are wrong..



Many people don't think that about Sweden either.

Putin has relaxed immigration enforcement. Russia has millions of people from all over the world. When Yeltsin was president, Russia encouraged ethnic Russian immigration from former Soviet republics. And Russia has some of the easiest criteria to meet for working permits and naturalization.

[@realAzhyaAryola]

I do not know much about Russia's domestic politics. But, we can pontificate on one of the world's most recognizable leaders and Western bogeyman.



By Christian Caryl of the Washington Post



We have a regrettable tendency to take authoritarian regimes at their word. Just think of that word "strongman". We almost always deploy it uncritically, and in doing so we play into the hands of the dictators. Strength is what they love to project. They spend huge amounts of time and energy assuring their citizens of their toughness and their machismo. And yet, as you can see in many a schoolyard, the preening bully is almost always trying to hide an underlying weakness. He doesn't get his power through respect or love or hard work — he gets it through fear. When the other kids stop being afraid, the bully immediately knows that his time is running out. He has two options: to change his ways — or to increase the scale of the violence he's willing to bring to bear. The catch with the second option, of course, is that it doesn't address the fundamental problem.



Which brings me to Russia, where prosecutors have just announced plans to withdraw parental rights from a couple who dared to bring their oneyear-old child to a political protest on July 27. That was also the day that Moscow police arrested 17-year-old Olga Misik, who had committed the unthinkable crime of - wait for it — reading aloud from the Russian constitution. A few days later, during another protest, the cops swooped down and detained a pro-government politician who was actually giving an interview defending a harsh government crackdown on demonstrators apparently assuming that anyone talking to the media must be a member of the opposition.



These three stories tell you all you need to know. The current Russian leadership might look strong. But it's actually running scared.



And it's easy to understand why. On this day, which marks the 20th anniversary of the day Vladimir Putin first came to power as Russia's acting prime minister, his country is struggling. The latest wave of unrest in Moscow, which was triggered by the city government's refusal to register opposition candidates for an upcoming election, is merely the latest episode in a longer story. Recent years have seen a steady rise in public discontent, though the causes don't always involve politics. In just the past few months, citizens have protested a waste dump, the construction of a cathedral and the redrawing of an administrative border. As the Carnegie Endowment's Andrey Pertsev recently noted, "Russians, once cowed by the potential consequences of taking to the streets, are increasingly willing to protest over nonpolitical and local issues."



Pertsev is right to note that there is a new fearlessness about these recent demonstrations that makes them remarkable. The extraordinarily brutal suppression of the Moscow protests on July 27 didn't prevent more demonstrators from taking to the streets in the days that followed.



The Financial Times notes that the real incomes of Russians have been steadily falling over the past six years, and are now 10% lower than they were in 2013 — the year before Putin annexed Crimea and went to war with Ukraine. Even if the economy grows a bit this year, many of Putin's compatriots, who live in one of the most unequal societies in the world, won't feel much benefit. Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin warned last month that the country could be heading for a recession if things don't change.



But "change" is precisely the problem. In two decades, the Putin regime has failed to deliver on urgently needed reforms. It has failed to diversify the economy beyond its natural-resource base. Corruption remains rampant. Business people and citizens can't rely on courts to deliver impartial justice. Politically well-connected oligarchs stifle competition and innovation.



One recent survey found that 44 percent of the country's young people would choose immigration if they had the chance. Small wonder that some Russians are comparing their president to Leonid Brezhnev. So we should expect increasingly brutal crackdowns on even the least significant protests. The big question: How much longer are Russians willing to be bullied?

I've worked in Russia. I have not been there in a while, but I know a bit about the country. The country is huge and regional disparities exist that affect the popularity of the president.The country is dependent on resource exports like Norway is. But, Norway's resource industries, like Canada's are state of the art and super efficient. Russian resource technology is far behind both countries.,



Now when I was in Russia, there was a feeling that nobody could hold the country together like Putin. Other than brainwashed Putinites, Russians know he has his faults. But, they don't see anyone else who can hold such a big diverse country together. A lot of people fear a return to the chaos of Boris Yeltsin if Putin was not in power. This editorial from WaPo is misleading, but what else would anyone expect from that rag.

For a while there I worshipped the Washington Post newspaper. It was the paper that was delivered to my door every morning.

[@realAzhyaAryola]

Putin's mission was to stop the subservience to the West and restore Russia's role as a strong independent voice on the world stage. He wanted Washington to treat Moscow with respect. And that means respecting Russia's interests. He identifies with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Despite what an editorial in the Washington Post this still has broad support among Russians.He is seen as someone who keeps political and social stability.

I agree with that.