[Apparatchik]

Gee, I dunno - seems like for all the crowing on FR about how great Russia is, it sure has a lot to be desired in basic freedoms. For instance, in this report, Russia scored 5.81/5.48/6.28 on a 2023 human freedom/personal freedom/economic freedom index, while France scored 7.86/8.18/7.4 on the same index, and the U.S. was 8.39/8.66/8.14. Heck, even Ukraine scored generally better than Russia at 6.72/6.55/6.17.

Face it, Russia is crap hole run by a murderous dictator, and we have every right to call it such.

[rottweiller_inc]

doesn’t matter if Russia is great or not. Let sovereign nations run themselves how they want to if you expect the same privlage

[Miami Rebel]

Russia and Putin represent to some here the champions of a white Christian Golden Age.

At the risk of repeating myself, this is the glorious sh-thole they admire:

Russia is a nation in decline.

The country’s birth rates have been in decline since 1994 when Russia was estimated to have 149 million citizens. By the start of 2022, its population was estimated to be 145.6 million, with 3,358 births a day being more than cancelled out by a daily death rate of 3,663. (May 2023)

Economically it is failing: household income per capita in 2011 was $8,487. At the end of 2022 it was $7,932.

Per capita alcohol consumption (2019) was 4.16 gallons. That compares with US consumption of 2.51 gallons. (2022)

How Christian are Russians? Across all three waves of ISSP data, no more than about one-in-ten Russians said they attend religious services at least once a month. The share of regular attenders (monthly or more often) was 2% in 1991, 9% in 1998 and 7% in 2008.(Feb 10, 2014.) In the US, in May, 2023, Gallup reports 31% of U.S. adults said they attended church in the past seven days, remaining below the 34% measured before the pandemic and the 40% measured in most years before 2013. (June 26, 2023)

On the other hand, Tucker Swanson Carlson says their subway stations are beautiful and their bread smells great.