I am going to give you a very different answer than most. The Russian people don’t rise up against Putin and his corruption because, in one way or another, they are almost all involved in it.
The corruption is not just at the top. It is pervasive throughout the population and the culture and has been that way for over one hundred years without a pause. It isn’t just the oligarchs who are corrupt. The traffic cop that stops you wants a bribe.
The checker at the supermarket can sell you stuff that “fell off the truck.” The black market has everything, but at far higher prices. Slots in good tertiary education are bought with bribes. Military officers are promoted on the basis of bribes and connections, not competence. It is just pervasive from top to bottom.
The best way I know if to get a good understanding of how bad it is, is a television show by President Zelenskyy of the Ukraine called “Servant Of The People.” This was the number one TV show in both Russia and the Ukraine for good reason. And it is basically why he was elected President.
In the series, Zelenskyy plays a high school history teacher who is videoed by a student during a rant about corruption in the Ukraine. The video is posted online and goes viral and he is elected President of the Ukraine.
But corruption is far more pervasive and resistant to repair than he imagined. Indeed the military and government are corrupt. And there are the oligarchs. And the petty swindlers. And even his own family is taking bribes. And these are difficult to change. It seems that everyone he meets is corrupt. And the solutions are few and far between.
This TV series is why Zelenskyy was elected, not some vague CIA plot as Putin claims. The Ukrainian people felt that Zelenskyy could clearly see the corruption and would call it out. And they had a very good idea of what approaches he might take to correct the problems.
The series is quite well-written and is very very funny. I recommend it on its own merit. It is streaming on Netflix currently for free.
Living in Central Europe gives you a different perspective on Russia, it’s people, history and what Russia has consistently done to them over centuries.
Putin, King of Russia and future Emperor of the Slavs
It is not universal, there are Slavs especially in Serbia who admire their ‘brothers’ as they call them in Russia. In general however, there is fear and loathing of not only Putin, the never ending Russian empire quest and war machine and it’s supporters, the people of Russia. For without the support of the people of Russia, the little KGB agent who shredded papers when the wall fell in what was then East Germany could never have rose to power or maintained it.
IN SHORT, THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE SUPPORT PUTIN, SUPPORT WHAT THEY SEE AS THEIR VICTIMISATION BY THE WEST, ESPECIALLY THE USA BUT ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE. AND THEIR DIVINE RIGHT AND MISSION TO DOMINATE CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE AS THE SUPER POWER IN THAT PART OF THE WORLD AND BEYOND IF THEY CAN PULL IT OFF.
Why caps? I want to make it clear, the Russian people are not anti-Putin, by far, up to 90% are pro Putin. They are not going to overthrow Putin, they are not going to push to get rid of the ‘oligarchs’, they are not going to oppose the invasion of Ukraine which most Russians feel, Ukraine does not have a right to exist.
Why? Because they are Russians, Putin not only represents them, like Trump with MAGAs, Putin is them, is the Russian people.
There will always be a small cohort of protesters, who believe in some wonderful dream of Russian literature and music and ballet and art, but they are a very distinct minority. They see themselves as part of Europe, but the average Russian sees themselves as dominating Europe and beyond.
So don’t expect any changes in Russia and if they decide to get rid of Putin, they will just replace him with someone who is probably even worse. A thousand years ago Kiev was the center of the Slav universe out of which Russia was born. The Russian answer to that is to try to destroy Kiev, to take Ukraine back, to say they deserve nothing.
Same for the Baltics, or parts of Poland, Moldova, Georgia (ahh the home of Stalin), or Romania or Bulgaria and joining with their Slav ‘brothers’ in Serbia to form a grand empire reaching from the Czarist dream of the Pacific to the Mediterranean and beyond.
They will never accept their dying society of 140 million and collapsing demographically, physically, morally with corruption from top to bottom as who they really are.
No Putin is them and glory to mother Russia is their goal.
