
New Yorker published an article on increased reprisals by the illegitimate Putin. The article says in particular:
"Since late last year, Putin with a stone mine endured the spectacle of mass demonstrations against his regime and his imminent return to the presidency.
"Beginning at the end of last year, Putin stonily endured the spectacle of mass demonstrations protesting his regime and his imminent return as President.
Much of the pre-election discussion was about whether Putin would crack down on the demonstrators after the balloting, whether he would erase the last traces of semi-liberal rhetoric and practice during the marionette years of Dmitry Medvedev. (Not that Medvedev was ever truly liberal; he just acted that way, from time to time, as if in a dumb show for foreign consumption.)
Would political enemies come under attack? Would there be searches, arrests, or show trials? The answer has been obvious for months: Putin's most vocal critics have every reason to fear.
What should also be heard and read is the direct address of the dissenters themselves to the court. And in their testimony they have shown themselves to be defiantly intelligent, worthy of the long tradition of Andrei Sinyavsky, Larisa Bogoraz, Joseph Brodsky, and so many other dissidents who stood in the dock and spoke for themselves and the cause of freedom".
It is to be recalled in this connection that the apprehensive and vindictive Putin is now persecuting even lawyers who are audacious enough to defend political opponents of the KGB regime.
A well-known Moscow lawyer Feigin told reporters:
"The government will not forgive, never forgive anyone. Criminal trials suggest that if the state need to crush you, it will do it, no matter what the laws of any international legal norms are, in spite of public opinion. So we do not have to see the mercy of the state.
Previously, it was not so. Now this arbitrariness reached the highest level.
Putin has not changed, but in between elections to the Duma and presidential elections he felt fear. And what is happening now - it's drunkenness after the victory. Putin has always done many things due to fear, and it is underestimated. He has a feminine nature, inwardly he is weak. Roughly speaking, Putin is not Stalin, not his reincarnation, he is incapable of hard bloody repression out of fear of liability in the future. All his machismo is affected, a show of force - a sign of weakness.
Tightening up will be up to a certain limit. As was correctly stated, they want to rule like Stalin and live like Abramovich, but these things hard to reconcile. I am convinced that a revolution will occur on the top, they will get rid of him themselves at some point when they realize his inadequacy and danger to their tasks.
The inadequacy of Putin is that he is willing due to any rubbish to take risks with everything".
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center