Originally Posted by polish_aristocrat

Just woke up with a headeache so don't want to get into a serious debate, but the thing is that Russia pretends to be a democracy, but chances are that if you were a politician in Russia and tried to establish a serious opposition against Putin, you'd be ass-raped in jail by criminals before you even seriously started.

I'm well aware that Russia has other political-traditions, but at the same time they pretend to be a normal democracy now, but at the same time are really far from it.

Just read some articles on it if you're interested.

And the thing that many people in Russia support Putin doesn't mean shit, when we are talking about how fair and honest that guy is. In Iraq many were genuinely supporting Hussein as well... But is Putin succesfull? No doubt.

Btw it will be interesting to watch Russia after the elections. We all know who will win (Medvedev) but will he stay dependent on Putin all the time? Or will he become independent at some point and Putin will be marginalised? Ah well, only time will tell.....