When have you last been there? or in Syria? you seem to know everything.
Do I have to go there to have an opinion about it? To be fair, Ukraine and Syria were not in your list of visited places either.
I don't know
everything. I do know enough about authoritarian regimes and the climate of fear and propaganda they tend to rely on so that I don't fall for RT bullshit.
Well, I guess that's a psychological aspect to this whole debate. A matter of perspective if you will. One can make assumptions and form an opinion about something and anything looking from the outside in, but more often than less the ground reality is a lot different.
Example :
Give freedom of speech > Extremists form a cult > Extremists become anarchists > Start a domestic war: Real-life case of ISIS, Taliban, Hizbul Mujahideen etc etc
While in an authoritarian world with some form of prohibition in right to movement, freedom of speech, right to form communities and right to protest
could, at least in theory, provide a thin blanket of a sense of security.
Now it's a whole different discussion about what the authority does behind this thin blanket that has been essentially put over the eyes of the people.
It becomes a matter of choosing the lesser evil.
Of course, I do not subscribe to the notion of authoritarian rule but I think I understand the motives behind the choice of many Russians to live happily with the way things are currently. However, note the part where I said its a matter of perspective, here I am still looking from the outside in and assuming what the people might be thinking.