Russian Liberal Opposition

ECHR is no longer relevant to Russia, they can make any decision they like.

They found in Russias favour in 2008 because even they could not hide the fact that Georgia was at fault.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky

Wikipedia has a better grip on the truth than the resident troll-tard Tsavo Feline.

Nevsky forced Novgorod to pay tribute and there was no democracy to suppress.   By refusing to pay tribute the
local clowns put everyone else at risk for punitive retribution and would not have survived any such retribution.
In other words, Nevsky did the wise and righteous thing.   Nevsky was also brilliant for sussing out the Catholics
who were a real menace to Russia since they had a rabid hate for the Orthodox.   That is why they sent crusaders
against Russia (Teutonic Order). The Tatars didn't have such ideological investment.  Paying them tribute made more
sense for the long term survival of Russia.   And it has been demonstrated by the centuries following the Tatar-Mongol
yoke that the west is obsessed with exterminating Russia.   We can see this today as well, where Crimea is trotted out
like something worse than the Nazis starting WWII and carrying out the Holocaust.

There seems to be significant decline in Putin and United Russia aproval ratings and it is strange to me no one but this crook Navalny has taken advantage of that..

Seems.

That impression is projected by the western media that want Putin out. The Amusing thing is that the 30 percent not happy with Putin are not happy because they think he is too soft on the west and have realised the west accepting Russia as it is is never going to happen and they wont drop down on one knee for a bunch of lying hypocrites...

The second most powerful political force in Russia is the Communists and they don't expect or want good relations with the west.

If Putin goes it is more likely someone else from the same party will step up and take over... the sort of thing that happens in the west all the time.

The problem for the west is that Putin is about the most pro west politician that Russia is likely to have for the next 30 years... at least till the memories of the 1990s and Yeltsin and the way the Americans manipulated and used him are gone...

The people criticising Putin talk about the evil oligarchs that support him and they all steal from the Russian people... these are idiots who don't follow what actually happened.

You can't have a society without the rich... I am not sure a society wont function without such obsenely rich people but it has never happened before so lets ignore the possibility.

When Putin took over he essentially made a deal... you have what you have, but you now have to pay tax and be a good Russian citizen and benefit Russia first... and stay out of politics... some of the very rich people were happy with that arrangement, while others that wanted to keep stealing because it was free money ran into trouble and started getting arrested for their very real crimes... Bill Browder is one such criminal though he is UK/American, but there are plenty of other very very rich Russians living in the UK with their stolen money.

Imagine Germany collapsed and everything that is now in private hands was actually government owned so essentially the reverse of what is now. Who would not want to buy BMW... the factories are financially rich because they have the pensions of the workers that the workers have paid into all their lives, so you talk to an American you know is in the CIA and he gives you 5 million dollars to buy BMW... Germany used to be a communist state so no one else has that sort of money... you might pair up with the top criminal and he can provide protection and get rid of any rival bids, and so you win the bid and get BMW... the whole company... from design to production for 5 million. Why did the CIA give you 5 million dollars? Well first of all they now own you, and secondly they know you are going to asset strip the company and essentially destroy it which means those factories can eventually re open and make cars for the American market much cheaper, or for another market the American cars can't access but ex communist Germany can. So you declare all the tooling and machinery to be cold war junk and sell it off for a fraction of what it was worth because it was actually rather good solid stuff. You then fire 3/4ths of the workers and pinch their pensions... can you see how these guys went from nothing nobodies in a communist country to billionaires... ruthless bastards every one of them.

Then Putin gets into power and tells you to look after the factory towns your factory used to support as the primary employer and to pay tax at a proper rate after 10 years of not paying any tax at all... some of them transfer their money overseas and go to the UK and buy a soccer team and become heroes in the west for being anti Putin.

Wonder why democracy gets such a bad rap in some places...