The brutal reality is that Putin’s Russia embodies everything the Trump Republicans dream of for America: a boundlessly corrupt, white supremacist, ethnonationalist fascist state whose oligarchs possess limitless power so long as they obey The President.

They call themselves the “party of Reagan”, while they trip over themselves to sell the geopolitical future of Europe down the river to Moscow…

“Chinese officials visibly nervous at the outpouring of public praise for dead leader [who they had sidelined and demoted].”

Русский, no — Российский, yes.

Well, it’s a good thing that the Bad Foreigners are to blame for the issue — otherwise the Kremlin might be forced to engage in critical thinking over the implications of their incessant agitprop for the stability in minority regions, and we can’t have that.

Sounds about right. The internal narrative is to actually tell people what to think, the external just the “firehose of falsehood” to divide and distract.

True. I’d say this disinfo angle is targeted towards apathetic/low info RU public (which is most of them frankly) and western sympathisers in denial about how ruthless the regime really is.

They’re just going to blame it on the Ukrainians, and/or “the collective west” to muddy the waters

Speculation runs that Dimi has been told by the Tsar that if he acts like the tough guy he isn’t with enough bravado, he’ll be allowed to sit in the big boys’ chair and pretend to be president again.