"Our rulers have been surrounded for years by people telling them this. Anyone who said that Russia has a big and very self-sufficient economy, that Putin is quite popular and at least half of his critics think he’s too soft, that money from gas sales to Europe are nice but there are lots of other customers, that you can’t be secure unless the other guy feels secure – what happened to them? You know the answer. They never got the chance to tell the bosses this and they never got in the door. And, when they did say these things – on the fringes far away from “trusted sources” and “fact checkers” – they were condemned as Putin apologists and their social media accounts were blocked."
ARE THEY AS STUPID AS THEY LOOK? BY HELMHOLTZ SMITH
https://sonar21.com/are-they-as-stupid-as-they-look-by-helmholtz-smith/