He is so cunning.
But I will not always be a winner.
Well France, UK and Germany and America are standing together.
And Theresa May, Boris Johnson and her Cabinet, Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron and Frau Merkel arenāt?
Pull the other one, Barbara, itās got bells on! 
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Because there is an āelectionā in Russia and he wants to appear as the strong man to an electorate who do not get reliable news.
Just like Mrs May - strong and stable eh in the face of a crippling defeat over brexit 
Peter did I say that he was the only one who is cunning?
Perhaps I did not describe him well enough.
Indeed I find it hard to to understand how any one could
look up to himā¦but they do?
They had such a hard time with Yeltsin, but Putin is not concerned with the economy, probably because it does not affect him behind the red walls of the Kremlin.
He was KGB and cannot shake off his distrust of the West, so he perpetuates the idea that the West wants to take over Russia.
The press is not free, demonstrations end up with a beating and being thrown into jail. I think that the majority of Russians are so fed up with awful leaders that they keep their heads down and just get on with their lives, which makes it easy for tyrants to exist.
No, Barbara, you didnāt say he was the only one who is cunning. I reckon most if not all politicians have to be to survive.
Why do Russians look up to him? Well you and I will probably both remember the dipsomaniac and kleptocratic Boris Yeltsinās antics: how he usurped Gorbachev and ushered in a feeding-frenzy of asset-grabbing by his Mafia friends, almost bringing Russia to its knees. The people remember that; and how Vladimir Putin took over the reins of power from the vodka-sodden Boris, with vast popular approval, and restored order to the huge and magnificent country and its wonderful people. People whose sacrifices dealt a death-blow to Hitler and his blueprint for Nazi domination of the whole of Western Europe and Russia, an empire that would last a thousand years.
Thatās why they look up to him. And to resist hostile invasion from the West, an historic threat going back more than a century. We British havenāt experience invasion for nearly 1,000 years. To the Russian people, invasion is within living memory of millions. Our people feel under threat from an invasion of Lithuanian care-assistants, Spanish surgeons, Polish plumbers and Bangladeshi grocers. Imagine how the Russians feel.
I visited the Soviet Union with my family in the 1970s, and found the Russians kindly, generous, children-loving, down-to-earth and helpful. I canāt say I was very keen on their cuisine, though. Maybe I would have grown to like it!
But if we lived in Russia I would have no fears of Putin.
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I used to work quite a lot in the former Soviet union and Russia, the cuisine was quite disgusting.
I remember the first McDo in Moscow, 2 queues, one for roubles, one for USD. We used to pay a local fixer to queue to pay in troubles, about 10% of the dollar price, but the queue was 20 times as long. At least it was edible.
Donāt forget that the Russians have killed far more of their own than any war ever has.
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Well I knew a Russian person who was living in London and he was so afraid of Putin and his cronies that he gave up his apparently thriving night club because they wanted to take over. He was gay and I think that there was a powerful anti gay thing going on.
To be a leading politician you certainly have to be a number of things mostly characteristics which I find unattractive and that is probably why I find it so hard to admire any of them.
They are all so full of themselves that they think that they can get away with anything.
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Not unlike Trump dissing Hilary Clinton with chants of ālock her upā et-al.
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Trump!
And now heās breathing down the neck of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and looks reckless enough to fire him and close down his investigation of Trumpās links to Putin. He might even get away with it.
I sometimes ask myself which I prefer: politicians who show their hand, and act unscrupulously in full public view to bring about the downfall of their enemies; or those who hide their wicked acts against the common man/woman behind a screen of supposed civil liberties, ancient institutions of seeming respectability (like the Crown), and the arcane paraphernalia of British justice, which only the very rich have access to in protecting their stupendous privileges.
We are just beginning to understand how our civil liberties are being undermined by state surveillance and data-trawling, with the cooperation of global corporations; how the class system is nourished by the Crown, and upper-class patronage, nepotism and favouritism to enfeeble the citizenry; and how the justice system criminalises mental illness and punishes women and families for non-violent 'crimes, while people who violate society by bankrupting the economy for personal greed go scot free.
And I donāt think Iām the only one who asks these questions of themselves.
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Another question which will never be answered is āhow did the world turn out like this,?ā
We are so advanced in so many ways and yet we seem, to me to have taken steps back.
This is a world where it is hard to find comfort in every day living as the leaders are mainly
nourished by the asperations of supreme power and wealth that they care not about the consequenses.
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Have you heard of the new Russian recipe, stuffed ballot box?
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You can fool some of the people some of the timeā¦what a jokeā¦
not yours Jane I laughed out loud.
Is it fear, stupidity, ignorance, arrogance or a just a disaster.
Lack Of a free press doesnāt help Barbara.
Might I suggest a possible starting point? One with which I am very familiar!
Patriarchy. The assumption of power and dominion held by, and practised by the male of the species. I include myself because I recognise these assumptions in myself, and have only very recently begun to acknowledge them, and their damaging effects. I have my wife to thank for opening my eyes.
But I think womankind has begun to address this global problem, and can reverse it. The women who contribute to SF are making that point better than I can.
Might be a useful topic for General Discussion?
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I think there has undoubtedly been a suppression of the āādivine feminineāā¦I often wonder about the phrase ālet us make man in our own imageāā¦who was āusāā¦??? And who was āourāā¦???
Mother Nature/Mother Earth left to her own devices without corporate or economic/banking interference is yin and yangā¦balanceā¦itās neededā¦we are all neededā¦male and female masculine and feminineā¦donāt feel bad peter ā¦Weāve lost touch with the old waysā¦those who knew about healing with herbs and now homeopathy ā¦the grandmothers the shamans the midwives the witches of oldā¦the inquisition the witch burning trialsā¦even st Patrickās day I see no cause to celebrateā¦the snakes he drove out were the pagansā¦a tyrant if ever there was oneā¦lolā¦but currently itās swinging to its extreme polar opposite as a particularly and crass form of (probably soros funded) feminism that I would rather not be associated withā¦I listen to the latest ludicrous ridiculousness emanating out of the mouths of Treeza and bojo and I keep thinking that any moment now the superimposed matrix will be revealedā¦someone will cry āApril Foolsā¦!ā and the drapes will be drawn back to reveal the wizard behind the curtainā¦I donāt know why but your post reminded me of thisā¦brief musical interlude coming upā¦āThe hands of the many must join as oneā¦ā x 
Puscifer - The Humbling River with Lyrics - YouTube
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Thank you Peter my daughter lived and worked in Moscow for nine happy years, unfortunately she had to come back to France for health problems but she was very happy there working at the French Embassy she found the Russians likeable and charming. At last someone speaks well of Russia.
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