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[Sheb]

Sauce?

Pretty sure he' referring to the vague of Russian apartment bombing right before the elections.

While it hasn't been proved, but people calling for investigation died, the state refused to answer an independent parliamentary commission investigation's questions and the guy leading that commission was jailed for leaking classified stuff later on.

More interesting, a bunch of bags connected to a detonator were found in an apartment block in Ryazan, placed there by FSB agent. Officially, it was an exercise, aimed toward testing how effective Ryazan's police was. Of course, no other exercise like this one was executed, no one in Ryazan law enforcement was alerted. And while the FSB claim the bag's content was sugar, the guy who defused it claim otherwise. How, and some private from a nearby military base claim they found RDX in bags labelled "sugar".

All in all, it's difficult to prove the FSB did it. But it definitely seems possible.

[Owlbread]

The Chechen government in exile frequently makes claims that the apartment bombings were orchestrated by the FSB, though those claims often expand in wild directions, claiming that even Shamil Basayev was an agent of the FSB and Beslan was orchestrated by rebels under FSB instruction etc. I wouldn't go as far as they do, but I wouldn't put a lot of the stuff past Putin.

[scriver]

Also, remember that Putin and his old KGB buddies committed actual terrorist acts against the Russian people as part of Putin's original election campaign.

Sauce?

A Cracked article, so no, I don't believe it 100%. But when weird shit keeps getting stacked around Putin and his government... Well, let's just say that I'm suspicious about the guy to a degree I wouldn't be of other leaders.

Iirc, the article was about him or his precursor (who endorsed Putin, or course) going out on television after a bombing and doing the usual "politician post awful event talk" - but referring not to the bombed place in question, but to a completely different one... That would get bombed one week after. So yeah, upon reading that I went full conspiracy-face. I mean, let's not forget that it was his his supposed "strength" when dealing with this new "terror threat" that made Russia close up behind him and vote for him. Before that he was generally unliked.

Also, it you compare old fotos to new ones, you can see that he had his lips surgically thinned. That has nothing to do with the above, it's just funny to know that Great Father Putin, Manliest of Men, is insecure about the size of his lips.

[aenri]

I must say I like Putin more than any other Russian leader. I believe he got Russia from the hellhole it was left in after the catastrophic dissolution of ZSSR.

[Loud Whispers]

I must say I like Putin more than any other Russian leader. I believe he got Russia from the hellhole it was left in after the catastrophic dissolution of ZSSR.

And he's done little to ensure a positive legacy for future Russia. It'll go right back to hello hellhole.

[LordSlowpoke]

I must say I like Putin more than any other Russian leader. I believe he got Russia from the hellhole it was left in after the catastrophic dissolution of ZSSR.

And he's done little to ensure a positive legacy for future Russia. It'll go right back to hello hellhole.

this is why the russians must keep him as a leader

wink wink nudge nudge why do you think it's called an autocracy

[Owlbread]

I must say I like Putin more than any other Russian leader. I believe he got Russia from the hellhole it was left in after the catastrophic dissolution of ZSSR.

Russia never left the hellhole. It's still in a hellhole and there's no sign of it coming out. I mean, granted, the economy's more stable and people are a bit better off, but my god look at the deprivation; the poverty, the drug addiction. They're also still suffering from the same old insurgencies, those areas are just wild. Kids getting blown up with hand grenades in their own cellars by corrupt cops/security officers, their fathers then blowing themselves up in suicide bomb attacks and all sorts of horrors.

[Loud Whispers]

Russia never left the hellhole. It's still in a hellhole and there's no sign of it coming out. I mean, granted, the economy's more stable and people are a bit better off, but my god look at the deprivation; the poverty, the drug addiction. They're also still suffering from the same old insurgencies, those areas are just wild. Kids getting blown up with hand grenades in their own cellars by corrupt cops/security officers, their fathers then blowing themselves up in suicide bomb attacks and all sorts of horrors.

To be fair reduction in crime and terrorist attacks are one things Putin's managed to accomplish.

[Owlbread]

Not enough. The terrorist attacks are still happening and crime is still way too high. A country as wealthy as Russia (8th in the world by GDP) should not have children begging in the streets.

[Frumple]

... think you mean "so many". There's underage homeless/beggars/panhandlers in every nation. Including the most wealthy nations. The wealthier ones just seem to be a bit better at keeping it out of the public eye, honestly.

[Loud Whispers]

Not enough. The terrorist attacks are still happening and crime is still way too high. A country as wealthy as Russia (8th in the world by GDP) should not have children begging in the streets.

Russia is massive. It has many problems it needs to solve before it can even begin working on those issues. They need to get off their reliance on oil and gas exports [this is what gives them the bulk of their GDP] which will mean their wealth is no longer tied to world supply, they need to excise the corruption in their institutions and get a strong sense of social cohesion before they can even begin working on their social mores. Putin's managed to keep investments and businesses including small businesses growing, meaning their economy's kept growing so his policies have shown to have a good deal of short-term success which have also more than halved the amount of poor people in Russia, moving them into the now much larger middle class. Because the problems exist does not mean Putin's reign is a failure, especially if the scale of the problems are reduced every year. It's the growing Russian agricultural deficit, the paradoxical widening of social gaps and social cohesion built on mutual hatred coupled with the heavily authoritarian autocracy means that once Putin is out of power Russia could be screwed over, especially once America starts exporting oil and a power grab contest begins.

... think you mean "so many". There's underage homeless/beggars/panhandlers in every nation. Including the most wealthy nations. The wealthier ones just seem to be a bit better at keeping it out of the public eye, honestly.

And some countries take this more literally. When the Olympics came around London the homeless by the millennium bridge disappeared. Never saw them again, but new ones moved in to replace the lost. China displaced millions for theirs. Most countries really only care when they have a show to give. Just look at America and their homeless drinking their hot snow.

[Owlbread]

... think you mean "so many". There's underage homeless/beggars/panhandlers in every nation. Including the most wealthy nations. The wealthier ones just seem to be a bit better at keeping it out of the public eye, honestly.

No, I don't mean "so many". I'm saying it shouldn't be the case. Just because it is the case in virtually every nation (my own included, I am ashamed to say) doesn't make it right, excusable or something we can just ignore.

[Frumple]

Ah. See, I was taking you noting Russia's wealth as some kind of indicator that wealth level is somehow indicative of lack of child beggars, and that even higher GDP nations would consequently be lacking them. Which they don't. S'far as I know, no one at all, ever, has managed to totally remove that sort of thing. S'considerably more than just a matter of available resources, et al.

But nah, y'just holding Russia to a standard no one meets, which makes the statement more sensible.

[Owlbread]

Ah. See, I was taking you noting Russia's wealth as some kind of indicator that wealth level is somehow indicative of lack of child beggars, and that even higher GDP nations would consequently be lacking them. Which they don't. S'far as I know, no one at all, ever, has managed to totally remove that sort of thing. S'considerably more than just a matter of available resources, et al.

But nah, y'just holding Russia to a standard no one meets, which makes the statement more sensible.

It wasn't that higher wealth is automatically indicative of a lack of child beggars, it's that the wealthier a country is the more equal the distribution of wealth ought to be. "Ought" being the key word as in the country is, in my opinion, morally obliged to sort that shit out. Distribution of wealth in Russia is not good at all.

That said, child poverty in Russia and the former Soviet Union is apparently worse than in most Western states. Though there's kids eating from food banks in my home town, at least they aren't forming street gangs and pickpocketing people.

[Frumple]

... at least in your home town, that you know of.

Which is kinda' a good case in point, about how that sort of thing tends to be less visible in wealthier nations. Stuff gets less pretty the more you dig, usually.