“Putin doesn't conduct elections in the Western sense of elections. This is more accurately probably described as a plebiscite, where people are supposed to express their support for him. The Russian system is not unique in this respect, but it is rather interesting. Here, in the West, the impression that people have is that Putin runs the whole country. This is not so, at all. To a certain extent, you could say that he runs the Kremlin, and this means that it's, in some situations, hard to tell whether it's him running the Kremlin, or the people around him running him.”
![“From Ukraine to Syria, he [Vladimir Putin] is behaving like the world's new general and celebrating victories, while the American president sits on the sidelines and Europe sleeps. The West's behavior toward Putin is political and moral capitulation.” quote by Garry Kasparov](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e76/garry-kasparov-910_american-president_from-ukraine-to-syria-he-vladimir-putin_1278990.jpg)
![“That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.” quote by Edward Gibbon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/70c/edward-gibbon-710_barbarism_that-country-carthage-was-rapidly-sinkin_393.jpg)
