Good opinion piece from a CNN reporter who has been in Russia for 30 years.
After over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair. One man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/europ...cmd/index.html
For a while after Putin rose to power at the turn of the millennium, there was a glimmer of the modernizer about Russia's new leader, but that reputation didn't last long. With unbridled passion he soon tapped into nationalism, embraced imperial nostalgia and the conservatism of the Russian Orthodox Church stoked Soviet-era suspicions of westerners and stifled dissent. None of this was done to make Russia a better place in which to live; it just made easier for him to rule.
This year, while I have been in Moscow covering the buildup and outbreak of war in neighboring Ukraine, it became painfully clear to me that, just as the Nazis did in Germany during the 1930s and 40s, Putin has had laws made to his order. And like many a strongman before him, the Russian President is ruthlessly unleashing the compliant and complicit state apparatus that he himself built, to obediently enforce them.
Putin has shaped the Russian state entirely in his image, a move that will not be easily righted. The majority are cowed, the complicit in too deep to reverse their actions, his sanctioned cronies warned to swallow their anger and take the losses for the team like true patriots.