Why "free" Russians abroad voted for Putin

Another quick/ad-hoc collection of thoughts on why "free" Russians abroad came massively to vote & many probably voted for Putin? If you are familiar with the following Russian narratives, you'll understand:

- Putin restored the "might" of Russia by responding to enemies of Russia/Russian people/Russian speakers (see the concept expansion) & invading the "fascists" (who all happen to be most of the people around the world Russia disagrees with & of course those all "deserve" it - true or not is another story), 

- Wagner commanders say they fight (back) against US in local wars... 

(who's mentality they reflect, do you think? See Project Meatgrinder/RL interview)

- He ordered poisoning of "traitors" (who happened to be threats to his system) #Skripal #Litvinenko (the list is very long though & includes people inside Russia systematically as well, but, of course is unknown to the large public - yet, there are Russians who know and reply something like "they got what they deserve". Mentality...)

- he raised the economy (together with his & his cronies personal incomes - but he gives people something!!!right? - the concept of crumbs from king's table?), 

- he said he'd change/abolish USSR dissolution, as most of the Russians are dreaming about it (post imperial syndrome - see Levada polls, he just responded to their main gripe, he knows his public/voters, they "get" him, he "gets" them),

 - his KGB/FSB, Electoral Commission, Judges do "order" according to his instructions (law can wait? For the sake of "order"?), 

- try not to vote for him... Would you vote in a USSR Embassy against the Communist party in the past? No way! (all travel records/passport controls are still, now, in FSB(KGB) control, consular registration is supervised too & I'd speculate about cameras at polling, but there is just no need to put them and speculate about them - people are afraid enough, even without all that, just like in USSR times. Common, we lived those times.) 

- he builds roads over Radio, not everywhere though... (do your google search - & you ask what is populism???) 

- "not his" and not Gazprom (NordStream2) et Co TVs tell people all of the above "successes" every single day - he even keeps one "opposition" TV alive to prove how democratic he is & he is shirtless!!! Oh, and he is a tough guy who would fix or reject that "Gayropa" (Gay-Europe! All of Europe being shown as gay to backward and conservative people. As if Russian TV concerts are not full of them? No? And US is included in Gayropa concept, if you didn't know, for free. As a matter of importance or tolerance, probably)

- After the "chaos" of democracy by Yeltsin, what's not to "understand"?! ("strong hand" concept came in... handy, pun intended, well placed over local mentalities, but never left, so no one ever saw what democracy is. But who cares, because...)

Mentality.

Not by itself, manipulated mentality, but...

P.S. Also read about Chingiz Aitmatov Epic of Manas "mankurt" concept. 

Rookie & UK

Very quickly about UK & Novichok - a collection of Eastern European style questions, plus old & new thoughts.

1. Looking at today's statement of PM May - there is always a lingering thought about her anti-pro Brexit position. Seemingly nothing to do with today's discussion, until one remembers about Russian involvement in Brexit, among other things. Not the best intro, yet...

2. Wasn't it PM May's party led Government, before her leadership, still her party (&Government) that issued the infamous memo during Ukraine war "keep the Russian money flowing to the City"? 

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/04/o-10-ukraine-sanctions-gaffe-city-profits-diplomacy-britain-russia

Somehow it reminded me today about UK+France+Poland joint defence agreement (that's not the exact name) before WWII, by which UK&France would step in if anyone invaded Poland. Correct me if my memory is failling me on that one. Well, USSR&Nazi invaded and had a joint(!) parade together, UK declared war, but stopped short of any other action, except the formal statement of war. The 1939 was a world of complicated situations, of course, but some Central&Eastern Europeans had a certain level of carefulness towards this case. And the Memo on Russian money raised some eyebrows even more.

3. If that wasn't enough UK managed to quite obviously "not-see" the 14 cases of Russian killings etc on their own soil!!! Here is the article on that:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil?utm_term=.qw3k1Yw4X#.sd61r54wG
Aside from job&paiment for research, why Christopher Steele had to go to US to tell that story and not UK?

4. And PM May recognized publicly that Russians meddled in Brexit too, as I recall.

5. Well, on the matter of nerve agent the PM specifically said the nerve agent was "military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia" (Novichok - in English "Rookie" or BBC suggests Newcomer, well, to my mind Rookie is a better translation:) 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/12/russia-highly-likely-to-be-behind-poisoning-of-spy-says-theresa-may

Though I was a desk officer for OPCW matters, I have to rely on BBC, which stated that Novichok was made mainly undetectable, and some variants are made of two non-banned substances that will become Novichok after being mixed. These substances are easy to transport separately and can be even solid, powder and liquid. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-43377698

Yet... Moscow never declared having it to OPCW! 

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1GO2JG

6. I am surprised in a way that PM May even attempts to give Russia time to present evidence to the contrary. Russians don't play such games. The simply don't! Even when they are not guilty, they are not going to justify themselves in front of anyone, let alone what they'd privately call "some" UK.

7. In fact, today was supposed to be the day when PM Theresa May will go beyong belicose statements and actually limited sanctions, which are rightly ridiculed by Russian super-rich leadership. Their mega-rich leaders with enough money home & unlimited domestic power don't care about sanctions that(!) much.

8. Perhaps PM May uses that to show the Western world a fair aporoach, or she plays the internal political game (more likely?), but the Russians simply don't see it that way. There are a few real decision makers in Kremlin plus in FSB/GRU/SVR, who knew what happened, all the others are voices in Mr. Putin's chorus. And they will sign the same song - that the Brits were unable to prove any hard proof, since Russians don't even have such Nerve Agents anymore (maybe some will even "lower" themselves to say that UK used circumstancial evidence), and that they attempt to make Russia look guilty and shift the burden of proof over Russia, instead of determining who is the real perpetrator (not Russia, of course) - the "forever" President Putin already stated something like "maybe some Tartars did it, maybe some Ukrainians and maybe even some jews with Russian citizenship did it" And what a selection of ethnicities/countries, by the way! 

9. Pretty much nothing will change, unless concrete Russians would feel some real heat, quietly, but clearly. Even then, they will only dial down. 

There are ways to deal with that.