[Gay State Conservative]

Russia is only starting to build democracy and it's all too easy to take it to task with a long list of omissions, violations and mistakes.

Mr Solzhenitsyn,the things that Putin is saying and doing can *NOT* be classified as "mistakes".Read the newspapers once in a while.Putin has brought the gulag to London (was it plutonium?) and he's also brought it to Ukraine (bringing Ukraine's communication system to a standstill).

Wake up and smell the vodka,friend....Putin is not the friend of anyone,*anywhere*,who values freedom,democracy and openness.

[goldstategop]

Putin is an autocrat. That doesn't make him a friend of the West. Russia has more or less reverted to the Soviet period except now nationalism rather than Communism is the source of its aggressive designs on Europe and elsewhere. Solzhenitsyn doesn't see this since he has a blind worship of Russia's government. A democracy isn't built by repressing internal dissent and murdering your own enemies abroad. The Slavophiles imagine they're bringing about freedom. In fact, they're helping to bring into being its exact opposite.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[JohnA]

The trouble with chatboards is that nobody holds posters like you to the facts.