Russian Society and Economy Suffering Under Putin

‘The country and society are seriously sick and may already be untreatable,” Gennady Gudkov, deputy head of the Russian parliament’s security committee, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda paper....

“The country is wallowing in corruption, theft, and hypocrisy, and all of this is reflected in incidents like the one in Tula,” he went on. “We need to understand very clearly that this is a reflection of the general symptoms of the degradation of the nation.”

...A recent poll by the Levada Center found that just over half of respondents believe corruption among the country's leadership is higher now than it was in the notoriously “lawless” 1990s. Almost 40 percent of respondents thought corruption was greater the higher you went up the political ladder, with 50 percent saying all officials were “equally” corrupt.

Polls also reveal an equal distrust of police, and with good cause. One of the clearest examples of the malfeasance of the country’s law enforcement agencies is the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow pretrial detention center. Magnitsky had uncovered massive fraud by police officials in the days before his arrest on trumped-up tax evasion charges and – as the Kremlin’s rights council has suggested – he was simply thrown into jail to die as punishment. _rian.ru_via_laRussophobe

Russia's economy is susceptible to fluctuations in the international price of oil. The Russian stockmarket is in a downward spiral, reacting to a recent fall in oil prices and ongoing economic troubles in Europe and the US. Capital continues to fly out of Russia at a high rate, with no end to capital flight in sight.

Russia's demographic collapse among its core population is continuing, as non-Russian immigrants continue to move into Russia, along with their higher birthrates. Russian crime is high, public health is poor, public spirits are low as are birthrates, and anyone who can get out is doing their best to do so, and taking their money.

The situation overall is quite dire, since the people of Russia have never known anything other than oppressive, corrupt, and incompetent leadership.