Quote (chopstickz777 @ Apr 6 2022 11:17pm)
I will respectfully disagree. I think Russia might be authoritarian to a certain degree (I don't like some of their laws) but at the same time I don't think Putin has much to do with it. When criticism like this pops up I immediately think of all the people who think Putin "had journalists killed", which in my view is just another aspect of the outrageous propaganda campaign. I don't regard it as being true.
But at-least you're reasonable in your disagreeing. The others would prefer to just label me a Kremlin agent and leave it at that.
The Russian form of government to my mind never intended for Putin to remain in power so long. He has done this himself. therefore I also contest the above. In terms of killing journalists and/or opponents I would also suggest that this would (under his viewpoint) fall under "enemies of the state". These are all historic (by historic i mean they have occured over the last couple of decades and continue to occur).
In terms of what is happening in Ukraine, I am broadly neutral on opposing narratives for flashpoint news items (say rather I would tend to favour the most plausible explanation) and instead agreeing where both narratives are aligned. it may be that we never know what truly happened for some events. I have already previously stated that in war, war crimes occur and propaganda and missinformation is used by both sides to varying degrees.
Ultimately Putin is the leader of Russia, and Russia is not a small country, and has a alot of russians, if some of them visit this site and thread, its good as it provides a different viewpoint. As I have already said, difference of opinions does not mean that all opinions are different. some thing we can agree on, some things we cant.
This post was edited by ferdia on Apr 6 2022 04:35pm