On the autocrat – Benjamin Bidder, Ann-Dorit Boy, Christina Hebel in Der Spiegel:

‘Pedestrians walk past Yaroslav Smolev with his placard as if he doesn't even exist. The 24-year-old with the long hair is standing in the slush on the famous Nevsky Prospekt in the center of St. Petersburg. The news of Alexei Navalny's death is only one day old. Smolev holds a sheet of paper in front of his chest. In red letters, he has written: "They killed Navalny because we didn't care."’

(…)

‘Smolev remains on the sidewalk with his sign for less than five minutes before three police officers come and take him away, as video footage shows. They would go on to initiate legal proceedings against him. The flimsy justification used is an alleged violation of coronavirus regulations, which no one else in Russia has paid much attention to for quite some time.’

(…)

‘The death of Vladimir Putin's best-known political opponent in a prison camp hasn't triggered any new wave of protests in Russia. At most, there are small, quiet actions held by a few thousand people, among them a conspicuously large number of women. Only a few dare to carry signs like Smolev. Most lay flowers at memorials to the victims of Stalinism, cry or kneel down. But even that is risky in today's Russia. Hundreds were taken away within a few days.’

(…)

‘Putin has no reason to fear an uprising in the country. The regime has proven to be terribly stable. Most people have simply surrendered to those in power – and that doesn't have to mean that they are doing badly.’

(…)

‘The stability of the regime cannot be explained by repression alone. Added to this is the resilience of this system, which has cleverly cushioned the sanctions. Indeed, the economy is growing, and the standard of living enjoyed by most people has only been slightly affected by the war. Hundreds of thousands of state employees in particular continue to live almost as before and see no need to question the autocrat.’

(…)

‘Putin has imposed wartime censorship. According to the regime, anyone who criticizes the attack on the neighboring country is slandering the army and is subject to prosecution. The censorship laws are so vaguely formulated that the security authorities can take action against just about anyone. Just wearing blue and yellow sneakers, the colors of Ukraine, can be enough to land a person in hot water. One Moscow man who did that got fined the equivalent of 100 euros. Meanwhile, a woman in Krasnodar was talking to her husband about the war in a restaurant. A restaurant employee reported her to the police and she had to pay the equivalent of 400 euros in fines; her husband went to jail for 15 days for "rioting." People are snitching on others all over the place in Russia right now. Compliant helpers have denounced tens of thousands of fellow citizens to the security authorities – also because of critical posts on the internet.’

(…)

‘Putin therefore has something even more important to offer in addition to the rod: the sausage. It has become a kind of catchphrase in Russia. A few years ago, experts summed up Russia's unwritten social contract as "sausage for freedom." The Russians don't get upset as long as they are doing reasonably well. And although the Kremlin is having to pump more and more money into the arms industry in the third year of the war, the standard of living of most Russian people has not deteriorated drastically.’

(…)

‘Others see no future for themselves outside Putin's system. "Anyone who has worked for the Russian state will never find a job outside Russia again, even if they resign demonstratively," says Prokopenko. Perhaps more people would make a different decision if the West offered them a hand, a way out.
"But no one is showing them a way out," says Prokopenko. "There's only Putin, and he says: You stay with me."’

Read the article here.

The long-term outlook of the Russian economy is probably less rosy, but for now the old policy works quite well, we’ll give you a sausage, you’ll give us your freedom.

And what should the West offer the Russian dissident? A passport? Wasn’t migration the favorite theme of the extreme-right?

Between 66,000 and 88,000 Russian soldiers have died, according to The Economist but even that number is not reason enough for any sort of uprising.

Zelensky might be less popular in Ukraine than Putin in Russia.