So you think Putin cheated on a massive scale in Chechnya, but was clean as a whistle in the rest of Russia? Let’s be real here, why would he cheat there and conduct a fair election everywhere else?
Reality check. Putin got 85%+ in Dagestan as well, and every place where there were no independent monitor drive Putin won on a massive scale.
To be honest, Putin probably would have won a fair election anyways, although by an embarrassingly more lacklustre result than what Putin supposedly won the election by. But only because he has successfully and systematically eliminated any real challengers to his rule.
I mean, who else are Russians going to vote for? That old Communist? The other guys who vote in lockstep with Putin? Ironically the old commie is probably more independent than the so called liberals that Putin runs against.
Might as well keep the man who stopped the boat leaking (Putin) than to throw him overboard for his many crimes and risk losing the fight or much, much, worse; a return to the instability of the 1990’s.
Chechnya, Dagestan is there any difference between these places? Their governors and mayors would jump out of their skins to please president because their very survival in view of Islamic insurgency fully depends on federal government and military.
And as you said who are an alternative? An old commie guy? A bunch of nazi neo-bolshevic cold warriors (like whose are backing Ukrainian insurgency)? Or maybe corrupt Russia-hating populist liberal intellectuals getting their money from Soros for lecturing audience on how ugly their country is?
Regardless of who exactly fired the missile that killed 298 innocent people, and who issued the order to do so, the Donetsk pseudo-state is a wholly-owned Kremlin subsidiary, with its top-three “power ministries” all in the hands of Russian citizens who are longtime creatures of Moscow’s special services. The only law in the DNR is Putin’s, as exercised through GRU channels. As such, it is difficult to imagine anyone undertaking any important decision there without Kremlin approval and the go-ahead of Russian intelligence.
http://20committee.com/2014/07/19/donetsk-rebels-and-russian-intelligence/