Having experienced Russia and returned and am going back again, it is my opinion that the West has no clue about it. A marvelous country with fantastic people. If you talk to those people, 9 out of 10 really like their leader. A total contrast to here in the UK and, from what I can see, Europe and the USA
9 out of 10 people that’s a big call for a country that had an exodus of people at the start of the war
My friends and ex colleagues who live there are trapped. The Russians who don’t live there don’t say Putin’s name.
True, Russia is huge and I mainly visit just one provence, but I do believe Putin's approval rating is in the mid to high 80s. Many of the young men I have spoken to believe him to be too leniant. The West does not report both sides ofthee story. We too have state run media, BBC. Our journalists no longer exist, or at least not allowed to report anything that doesn't go with the narrative.
He’s a dictator with a disregard for human life and a track record of deceit.
Show me a democratic election and we can talk about his popularity
Unfortunately the same (dictator with a disregard for human life and a track record of deceit) can be said about most "western" leaders now.
They are all lying to us, and the media supports it. There are very few journalists who even try to speak-truth-to-power.
Is Tucker 'Hyping it up'... yes.
Is Putin using Tucker to deliver a skewed message ... most certainly.
But censoring these messages is never a good thing.
We need to rely on everyone's built in intelligence and skepticism to identify the skewed messages and down-right lies for themselves. ...unfortunately (again) these muscles have atrophied in today's 'modern society'.
To be fair, for the disregard and deceit part the same could be said about the current and former US president and UK PM's like Johnson, Cameron, Blair.
And even dictators have a hard time when they have no majority support and they are pushing unpopular things like drafting into an unsupported war. If there was no popular support for him or his measures, I doubt the war could have been sustained 2 years
Also Joe, the Russian I live with says his name. Obviously not everyone likes him. I have never met, not likely to meet Putin, so I can only go on my experience.