a reply to:
WannabeeAuCourant
I will address some silly claims from the movie since I wasted time watching it.
I will begin with the funding. I don't know if he received donations from the West. He had many supporters there but his anti-corruption organization
received donations from Russian businessmen. There are Russian oligarchs disgruntled with Putin, the members of Russian opposition who migrated to the
West, they could finance him too.
About the US interfering in Russia's internal affairs and that democracy is the right to self-determination... The Russian people have no right to
self-determination. That right was taken way from them completely in 2020 when the amendments to the constitution were made that guaranteed Putin
absolute power till the end of his life. They have no right to protest, to watch anything except the government TV, no free internet, no right to vote
for anyone except Putin. All the serious members of opposition who could threaten Putin are eliminated. Only the weak pawns are admitted to election,
some of them even cede their minor support to Putin. They have no right to voice an opinion which is different from the official propaganda. During
Navalny's earlier activities, the regime was softer, it got tougher year by year as Putin grew in power. With the beginning of the war in Ukraine,
people lost the last remains of freedom. Now voicing opposition to the government means long years in prison, sometimes even death.
Can you put yourself in the shoes of the people living under the totalitarian oppression? How can a silly armchair philosopher ( I'm talking about the
guy from the video) talk about self-determination?
There was something said about Navalny's death; that it wasn't in Kremlin's interest to make Navalny a martyr. Once Putin became a pariah of Europe, a
persona non grata in the West, when even Germans are weary of conducting business with him, he stopped giving a damn about the West. He no longer
cares about how he's viewed in the West. He has a partner in China, he makes deals with the countries in Asia, Africa and South America. He's winning
in Ukraine. The murder of Navalny was his middle finger shown to the Western World, could even be personal revenge for the disdain shown to him by
previous business partners, like Germans for example, who rescued Navalny and fancied him the president of democratic and Europe friendly Russia.
Navalny's death additionally weakened the Russian opposition, many lost all the hope. So yes Kremlin gained something from Navalny's death.
I'm aware of his early nationalistic views. But he talked about deportation of immigrants not killing them. Later, he talked about giving visas to
working immigrants only. I find it funny when the same people who rave mad about Mexicans crossing the US border illegally are so disgusted with
Navalny's earlier views. I remember the time when even Poles couldn't enter the US without a visa. And before the war Poland had a complex system of
visas and work permissions for Ukrainians. They couldn't enter unless invited by the employer . This is what Navalny proposed in his political
program.