That's not my palace, says Putin.

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition figurehead who was poisoned using Novichok has released a video (87million views) claiming that a palace on the Black Sea was built by Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

We've watched an hour of this nearly two hour video and whilst it's hard work with subtitles, there is something in it. Unfortunately much of it is circumstantial and I could help think of CFK and how slippery she is.

But Putin must be worried, bearing in mind the clampdown on rioting in the Russian dictatorship.

Quote from UK Man

Funny you should mention this. I was watching some footage of the Moscow slums last night. Kind of tells you Communism doesn't exactly work.

Communism hasn't worked in Russia since 1989.

Quote from GlasgowJohn

How should we define Putin's political ideology?

I had to go to Wikipedia to find out.

Quote

Russian politician Boris Nemtsov and commentator Kara-Murza define Putinism in Russia as "a one party system, censorship, a puppet parliament, ending of an independent judiciary, firm centralization of power and finances, and hypertrophied role of special services and bureaucracy, in particular in relation to business".^[42]

She also cited former CIA director James Woolsey who said: "I have been particularly concerned for some years, beginning during my tenure, with the interpenetration of Russian organized crime, Russian intelligence and law enforcement, and Russian business. I have often illustrated this point with the following hypothetical: If you should chance to strike up a conversation with an articulate, English-speaking Russian in, say, the restaurant of one of the luxury hotels along Lake Geneva, and he is wearing a $3,000 suit and a pair of Gucci loafers, and he tells you that he is an executive of a Russian trading company and wants to talk to you about a joint venture, then there are four possibilities. He may be what he says he is. He may be a Russian intelligence officer working under commercial cover. He may be part of a Russian organized crime group. But the really interesting possibility is that he may be all three and that none of those three institutions have any problem with the arrangement."^[45]

In so many ways it's a dictatorship, much like Erdogan in Turkey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…0relation%20to%20business"