As the guarantor of the Constitution, the Russian President is responsible for maintaining civil #peace and harmony. However, since the 2011−2012 protests,# Putin has effectively unleashed a cold #civilwar inside the country, polarising Russian #society and labelling all those who disagree with him as ‘traitors’. He had resorted to the ‘divide and rule’ strategy before. One well-known example is the statement he made in the autumn of 2007 about people begging for scraps at foreign embassies. However, ten years ago this polarising rhetoric became an integral part of the narrative disseminated by the government’s #propaganda. At present, the society is more divided than ever between the supporters of the regime and the #opposition: the two camps have nothing in common at all. And this is a bad signal for Russia’s future.

https://ridl.io/cold-civil-war/ #education #humanrights #war #censorship #nationalism