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Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

> Current regime in Russia has learned the lesson

Why is it a "regime"? Putin was democratically elected and even Western opinion research institutes unequivocally attest that he is supported by 85 to 90 percent of the Russian population.

In US media this is always attributed to "propaganda" while economic successes that might have an influence on Russian votes is completely ignored. For example: Russian GDP rose during Putins years tenfold. Russia reduced its foreign debt down to 23% of GDP and a flat tax of 13% for everyone was introduced. (I live in the EU and I am basically robbed by my government - I pay a hefty 50% tax on top of being forced to charge 20% VAT from my customers)

If these aren't good reasons to vote for someone then I don't know what is. I would vote for ANY party (except radicals), be it left or right that would stimulate GDP growth while reducing my taxes down to 13%.

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In the years preceding the collapse of the USSR, circa 1987, 98% of the population supported the Communist Party. When there is no freedom of speech votes aren't predictive or indicative of anything at all other than the amount of propaganda.

There is no freedom of speech in Russia today, in fact it's been deteriorating year by year. So no, the pro-Putin votes you have today will evaporate in a (historical) instant just like they did then, in the 1980s.

I see Russians everywhere on the Internet speaking their mind freely and hosting political Youtube channels. The government has nowhere near the grip on information it had during the USSR.

Additionally Russians can access all Western media whenever they like and they do so often, especially the urbanized population. (where the majority of them create pro-Putin comments defending the actions of the Russian government)

That pro-Putin votes will evaporate is just your personal opinion and hope, but it isn't based on anything real. After the Yeltsin years it will take many decades for liberalism to recover in Russia.

Russian government does censor the internet. There is a blacklist maintained by Roskomnadzor; it, for instance, blacklists certain Wikipedia pages, along with certain opposition and other "extremist" web sites. Russia lacks a China-style single-choke-point firewall; ISPs have to enforce it.

If you have a chance to watch any Russian TV, you can't avoid noticing how propaganda-heavy it is, and how all the propaganda is in favor of the government (in the US, at least, the latter is not the case).

Also, being a businessman of any importance and not following the party line does not work. Not all cases are as dramatic as Khodorkovsky's, who happened to own one of the largest oils and gas companies, but legal harassment of business for political non-conformance continues, or continued while such non-conformance lasted, or, at least, was publicly visible.

This is milder than China, and way milder and more sane than than the Soviet regime was; there's no doubt about it. Also, the sharp rise in living standards of 2000s, fueled by oil prices, is still remembered and has not completely deteriorated. So Putin does enjoy some genuine citizens' support. It's still not something that citizens, acting freely and with consideration, have chosen, kind of like the Swiss do in their referenda.

Yes. Although I disagree with censorship where ever it happens, you can hardly argue that the blocked pages are political in nature.

Wikipedia was blocked for drug and suicide related content and was since then unblocked. (after Wikipedia removed these articles in its Russian version)

I can argue. Why were grani.ru blocked?

I'm a Russian freely speaking my mind on the Internet. I’ve only started doing that after I've took my one-way flight from there, with no intention to return ever.

Are you sure those Russians you're talking about aren't emigrants like me?

Who or what prevented speaking your mind on the Internet while in Russia. I'd really like to know.

It's not like they have a great firewall there where every foreign service is blocked.

And yes, based on the sheer number of Russian comments found on the Internet you would have to be insane to honestly propose that these are only coming from emigrants

There is rampant blocking of religious freedom in Russia - online and in real life, enforced by government and England's by the Orthodox Church. It is a regime and it is a tyranny.

What is "blocking of religious freedom" even supposed to mean? Do you mean the freedom to be a Sunni Jihadist or following some other school of extremist indoctrination?

> Additionally Russians can access all Western media whenever they like and they do so often, especially the urbanized population.

East Germans could get West German television.

It's pretty easy to consolidate reported public support when your government has nationalized the bulk of the media, and exerts economic and coercive violent pressure on the opposition press.

Media is in Russia overwhelmingly owned by private shareholders, so please get your facts straight.

Same could be said for Singapore substituting violent pressure for legal pressure.

Singapore is successful, Russia is crumbling. That's the main difference.

Of course it always depends on perspective. There are some people who would claim relative success of Singapore not compensating restrictions, and yet some other people would claim even North Korea is doing okay so stop insulting them.

"Democratically elected" for some value of. Take voting in North Caucasus, for example, where official turnover is 99% but tens of percents say in polls that they never go to elections.

But. Putin stole elections to Duma. Those were totally baked, and to make matters more humiliating, they did it in Moscow, they outright rewrote results, they let same people to vote dozens of times, they threw batches of fake votes into bins. This is widely documented.

Do you think this will be forgotten? Do you think this will never shoot back?

> Take voting in North Caucasus, for example, where official turnover is 99% but tens of percents say in polls that they never go to elections.

You know Chechens are the most fervent Russian nationalists today? They experienced the joys of living under an extremist Islamic caliphate for a few years between the first and the second Chechen war. Today they'll vote for any strongman that will ensure stability and security in the region. And that my friend is currently Putin.

> But. Putin stole elections to Duma. Those were totally baked

Yes sure. When Western opinion research reaches the conclusion that 85-90% of Russians support Putins policies it obviously makes a lot of sense to "steal" elections.

> This is widely documented.

Where? In the CIA fact sheet?

> Do you think this will be forgotten? Do you think this will never shoot back?

Please spare us all of this childish rhetoric.

I think he's claiming that the official election results are blatantly not true, since they claim "99% of voters voted", but over 10% of the population claims to be voters that did not vote in the election.

It's irrelevant how fervent you are when you are presumed voting when you actually don't.

I don't know how much sense does it make to steal elections; nontheless it has been done.

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