Find your Russian prison sentence! I got seven years for spreading gay propaganda. 🏳️‍🌈 Image
Russia's internal security forces are now one of the largest and best-equipped paramilitaries in the world (better so than the actual Russian army), with a huge budget that has been increasing annually. Putin has had 20 years to prepare for this. There's no storming the castle.
Unless there's enough pressure from Putin's circle, pressure now nearly impossible to generate solely inside the country because they don't care about the country, to make Putin toxic to their wellbeing and profits, they'll shoot if they have to. Why not?
It just keeps getting harder. In 2008, things were far different. Even in 2012, it was uncertain how things might fall if there were enough people in the street. But it might have been a bloodbath even then, impossible to know.
But any system so dependent on one man is inherently fragile, no matter how many shock troops are in the streets. If Putin is isolated and discredited, you remove the head. If his cronies decide that reforms to relieve the pressure are needed to save their comfy lives abroad.

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More from @chessninja

5 Feb
1) Biden saying it himself and 2) his saying “Putin” instead of “Russia” or “Russian government.” Capo to capo, it matters. Putin has been dictator for 20 years and is the richest guy on the planet. He doesn’t care what Blinken says.
The reason we've harped on this trivial detail for years is not just to get Putin's attention. It's to focus on Putin the crime boss as the problem, not some old-timey clash of national interests or ideologies.
Putin and his gang don't care about that stuff at all, except for occasional "Make Russia Scary Again" propaganda. They use "Russia" as a way to deflect attention and absorb punishment that should go do their global criminal business. It's a construct.
Read 6 tweets
4 Feb
More from the usual Russia Today angle, the same one that's been trotted out for a decade. "If you ban our hostile propaganda, we'll ban your free media." But it's a false choice and you don't have to fall for the transactional bullshit.
Putin and his gang crave access and legitimacy in the free world. Right now, they have it both ways. No media freedom at home, but paid Kremlin propaganda in the free world. One of many double standards that help modern dictators thrive.
"Dateline—Berlin, 1939: Germany complains that the Nazi News Network has been kicked off the radio in America, threatens to sue, ban Walter Winchell in Germany." Fuck off.
Read 5 tweets
24 Jan
I'm all for discussing Navaly's personal politics, and disagree with him on much, but saying the free world shouldn't stand up for someone jailed and nearly murdered because he's not Bernie Gandhi Mandela is bullshit. He's risking his life fighting a mafia dictatorship.
Plus, Navaly's politics as we know them (he's never held office), not coincidentally, largely reflect mainstream Russia, which is far from liberal by Western standards. This is probably a more useful topic anyway, tbh, esp re Crimea.
He's ambitious, as was/is Khodorkovsky. He has positions (again, no formal platform) that would make him acceptable to Russians should he ever get an actual chance at power. That makes him less acceptable to Western liberals, but they're always hoping for a Yavlinsky, a Nemtsov.
Read 13 tweets
23 Jan
In 2017, I pitched the idea of little testimonial videos of "what democracy means to me" at an early RDI board meeting. We had no operations and no budget, so hoping for virality seemed good. Now it's actually happened, and going viral, and it's awesome.
I still have the meeting notes, since I never delete anything. We thought it would be good to have people like Garry who lived (or were still living) under authoritarian regimes do it first, a "don't take democracy for granted" message. But it risked sounding preachy.
Now, when RDI actually has operations and a (small!) budget, it was the best of all worlds by having another "immigrant patriot" like Alexander Vindman lead the project. So many different videos coming in, from famous and regular folks, really great. #RenewDemocracy.
Read 6 tweets
22 Jan
Remember when Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill's guys photoshopped out his $30K gold Breguet watch but you could still see it in the reflection on the table?
That was 2012, before everyone on Twitter became a Russia expert, so I thought I'd share.
To cross my streams, @Kasparov63 was known for taking off his big gold watch (he had an Audemars Piguet sponsorship) at the board as part of his settling-in ritual. He's credited with putting it back on "to signal to his opponent that the game was over" but that's mostly myth.
Read 6 tweets
19 Jan
"They wanted selfies, they’re going to get mugshots."—@Kasparov63
As Garry's thread there says, and his subsequent CNN article details, don't politicize it either way: "The correct response is the dispassionate application of the law. Not political persecution, but nor politically motivated leniency." cnn.com/2021/01/12/opi…
Read 4 tweets

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