A few days ago, the leader of the official opposition party in Russia was assassinated outside of the Kremlin after greatly criticizing Putin for mishandling the Ukrainian civil war. Putin retains an 80% popularity rating in Russia despite the horrible economy that has been caused by Putin's lack of cooperation with the West. What do you think this means? Is Putin sending a message to Russia? Is America trying to frame Putin? Was it just a random person who really likes Putin? There are two things that I know which lead me to believe Putin is responsible. 1. Putin is ex-KGB. 2. The mob basically controls Russia. This leads me to conclude that the person in power, Putin, has ties to the mob, a very powerful group. I think Putin is using the mob to extend his power over Russia, because the mob will do what police and the military will not.
It's not that much of a debate. It's simple. Dictators take out any sort of opposition, it's always been like that.
I'm my country the president was assassinated 10 years ago, the most recent president quit, and we havnt had a president in 10months. Does it effect our lives? Nope. Long live The Lebanon!
The guy who was killed also said like a week before he was killed, that he was afraid Putin was going to have him killed. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Its the men in black hired by Putin. You cannot oppose him no matter what. He owns Russia and all the babes there. Minus a few who play KAW.
Amazingly Putin is popular, very similar to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Castro in Cuba, I don't quite get it, Russia could be an amazing country and a major step forward to achieving peace. The leaders of the UN security council need to work together otherwise you'll see more ISIS type groups appearing. Oh....for ISIS supporter, well your cause is a joke much like many others groups in world history. You're not unique...very old story which typically has ended in pain in despair for their supporters. Getting back to Russia, China is eating your lunch while Putin is trying to flex muscle of a dated war machine, in 20-30yr Russia headed on this path will be a Venezuela or Cuba to the world...Time to start thinking forward...
@VMA actually his not hard to understand why Putin is still popular in Russia. First of all you need to know that russians are very nationalists. Do they like advantages of western world? Yes they do. But they do love their country. Same as americans. Let's imagine this scenario: Tomorrow Obama decide to give Texas back to Mexico, give independence to California, give Louisiana back to France and so on... After a decade a new president will come. A president that will slowly start to take back those territories. You think he's going to be unpopular in USA because he's bringing his country close to a war?
I would debate the authenticity of popularity polls on Putin. When you have a crae-crae trigger-happy devil-may-care dictator, quite a few people will say and do whatever it takes to keep their families safe. They fear retribution for outspoken dissent. Once the false-positives are out of the equation, you can look at the other factors. Putin controls the press - lets post pictures of ourselves wrestling bears! He removes any alternative to himself - killing, defaming, or undermining any meaningful opposition. He plays his people against the world (us vs them approach unifies the core). And, like Vlad said, there is the nationalist factor and the whole Crimean issues. I like the bit about the dated war machine, VMA, but was Russia not recently accused of more cyber crimes against the US? I know they keep sending bombers to flirt with British airspace.
They do, and unfortunately all of the European countries are I'll equipped to deal with it. Still lowering defence budgets so they can win elections... Pathetic. If someone in Europe doesn't step up and do what needs to be done then this whole situation is going to get worse. They haven't leant from the appeasement before ww2.
Patton was right. That's why they had him killed. He wanted to reenlist the Germans and head to Moscow. If it weren't for Patton the German people would have lost their homes as punishment for the war. His Governance in Germany was influential in providing German people with the opportunity to atone and recover from a horrific war started by mad men. Without being subjected to genocide by immigration. They wanted to take all the peoples homes and possessions and give them PoW survivors, holocaust survivors. They had so many people inside that country at the end of the war it was hard to get them all headed back in the right direction. It's unfortunate he was a bigot and racist elitist. Otherwise he would have much stronger impact on culture.
The 20th century started with the Russo-Japanese war. Russia and Japan were fighting over Manchuria and Korea. And it really sets up the world conflict in the future. Fighting over resources. Then we had the First World War. During that time Germany sent Lenin into Russia funded with gold to overthrow the Czars. When they couldn't do it by popular support, they did it with force. And we know what happened next. Russia dropped out of the First World War. Better known as the Bolshevik Revolution in October of 1917. The Czars just couldn't hold it together. We had the AEF in Russia at the time. Between 1918-1920. Guarding supplies coming through Siberia. Between 10-20 thousand troops. With other great powers like Japan. I'm not sure why the Czar didn't receive our help, but the assistance provided to the Russians was significant. Food, clothes and other supplies. The US companies were actually responsible for a lot of Russian infrastructure. We actually could be seen as a strong enabler of communism. Which kind of sets up our lend lease policy of the Second World War. We sent tons upon tons of supplies into Russia. We even personalized messages for the troops. Giving them whiskey and snack food. Wishing victory to our comrades. So we have Patton the war god. He wanted to roll over the Russians. Engulf their whole army in a huge encirclement. Before you know it he is dead. That's my history. Enjoy.