Free Republic

Recently we learned that President Putin is spending more time in bunkers and cracking down on internal security as he fears the possibility of a drone strike or a coup.In addition to seeking to preserve his own personal security, Putin has cracked down on people's personal freedoms by shutting off social media and private messaging accounts and pushing everyone toward Kremlin-monitored accounts.But there are signs that this repression is starting to backfire as people are increasingly willing to oppose Putin publicly. Case in point, Ilya Remeslo, a former Putin supporter who spent years harassing Putin's enemies.Remeslo was once part of...

A pro-Kremlin figure who unexpectedly denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in a social media post this week that went viral has been placed in a psychiatric facility, the hospital said on Thursday. Ilya Remeslo made a career denouncing Putin’s critics until he became one himself, posting a manifesto late on Tuesday to his 90,000 followers on Telegram entitled: “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.” He said Putin had prosecuted a “failing war” in Ukraine that had killed millions and torpedoed Russia’s economy to the detriment of its citizens’ well-being. Vladimir Putin is not...