I think you will be surprised at his followers, they range all over a spectrum of ages and backgrounds
What you find is the young people who believe they are some how hard done by and that they are sick and tired of the system actually know little to nothing about democracy and what it entails they are what id describe as leftist idealists
Middle age Russians and older Russians want a strong hand on the tiller of power and they get that with Putin you rarely find many old people speak out against Putin and that's because under Putin they are much better off.
The young who want the democracy have never known what that was like in the 90's and the struggles and problems their country faced with a leader that was a joke in the end the 90's was when most of them were born and they are now in their 20's and early 30's
What the young see is America and UK pushing democracy and it looks good not long ago they got a shock why ? because young people in Russia follow politics more avidly that is given credit for.
The young people of Russia tended to want the UK to remain in the EU guess what the vote went to Brexit that was the first shock.
The second shock was trump being elected again most young Russians thought Hillary Clinton was a done and dusted deal it wasn't.
Since then the young have tended to realize that while their system isn't the best and isn't fair they cant have what they want they seemed to have quietened down a lot and numbers have gone down too.
The system under Putin favors the young and hard working the state will assist you in a job and will pay for education, and your education if you sign on to be a military officer your required to do 5 years service then you can leave.
A lot of young get healthy careers in Russia that the state provide they then leave Russia and go overseas.
Putin doesn't want a war he knows he cannot win against the combined defense of NATO nor does he have the cash to do so his war will be one of the hearts and minds and another with the old style soviet influence after all what would you expect from ex KGB.
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