Quote Originally Posted by Exodus View Post
This is a puff piece, more "they hate our freedoms" nonsense. Putin is extremely popular within Russia, why should he fear being overthrown?

This is a far more insightful analysis of the ideological aspect: https://www.memri.org/reports/russia...ical-dimension

Not that he isn't guilty of various offenses, but Putin has been pretty much straightforward about what he wants geopolitically - he wants to end American hegemony and establish a multipolar world.
Yeah, I thought it sounded odd - why would Putin really care to see democracy fail generally, rather than say focus on doing things to Make Russia Great Again? But Anne Applebaum knows the country so I thought the article might nonetheless has some insights.

I think I tried to read her books before but I thought her writing had a lot of purple prose.

But I'm not convinced Putin is popular in Russia.