You can only be corrupt for so long before it all starts to catch up with you. (UK please take note of this...)
Kamil Galeev keeps reinterating the ethnic tensions within the country in addition to this. There is a massive difference between the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg and rest of Russia, particularly rural Russia. He makes a big point about how the West only talks to opposition leaders from the two big cities. Never the regions. And that how Navalny has an ideology which will continue to exploit and control the regions and minorities from a white, Moscow power base.
He did a short thread about how there is this ideological gulf and how many from minority backgrounds don't feel wedded to 'The Cause' as such.
Kamil Galeev AT kamilkazani
Today is May 9. My friend had a walk around Moscow and noticed an interesting pattern. Shop, restaurant, pub owners in Moscow all cover their property with posters and St George ribbons demonstrating their adherence to the state cult of the Great Victory
You know who doesn't?
Halal restaurants. Here you see three Chayhanas run be Central Asian immigrants and predominantly for other Gastarbeiters. They have no May 9 symbolics at all. The fourth is the restaurant of Vaynakh (=Chechen & Ingush) cuisine. It doesn't have any Victory symbolics either
That was all taken by a single person during his walk over Moscow. And it's very telling. It suggests that the Great Victory cult and Russian imperial ideology in general didn't put their roots down the minority populations that seriously
Heavy participation of minorities in Z-war is well-known. And yet, in Ukraine they're fighting for the alien ideology which they don't share. They're following the orders of Moscow. Therefore, stripping Moscow of any ability to give them orders is vital for the future peace
This photo shows a degree of military hysteria imposed by the Russian gov. They literally put a military field kitchen under the USSR flag and feeding passerbys with "soldier rations". Government enforces such exaltation and businesses comply. Except for the ethnic businesses
The jokes about nutella, washing machines and toilets aren't unimportant. Ukrainians having these things and having a higher standard of living will drip, drip, drip back to communities and fuel a sense of grievance in multiple ways. Some against the state.
Emphasising this in memes and propaganda pushes the message in a subtle way too.
And DH was saying yesterday that apparently 20% of Russian internet users now use a VPN. TWENTY PER CENT. Of course you only have the internet in more affluent areas but you still have an issue. Why do all these Russians WANT a VPN to begin with? Think about it (there are numerous reasons - many of them culture related).
Russia definitely is falling apart. One of the jokes is that many Russia cities look nearly as bad as Maripol - except they haven't actually been at war. Thats how desparate life is. Seeing there is an alternative is precisely the thing that Putin hates more than anything.
The war is about Nutella Availability Not Nato.
When it comes down to it, what ordinary people prioritise in life is very different to what politicians do. Taking for granted access to the basics, will easily see a government fall. In any country. Remember even China has been struggling with this in Shanghai in the last couple of months...