Time is Fleeting

We are now (2024) as distant in time from Russians' last serious demonstrations (2011-2012) against Kremlin autocracy as those demonstrations were from when Vladimir Putin took power (1999).

The first quarter of the twenty-first century has nearly passed us by and, for Russians, every day of it has been ruled over by Putin and his cronies – the KGB/GRU/FSB goon squad that took advantage of in the disorder of Russia’s lurch toward democracy to seize assets and, eventually, the levers of power.

The whirlwind they have sown darkens our daily news with bombings of Ukrainian children’s hospitals, imprisonment of journalists, dissidents, and pensioners , not to mention declining birth rates and standards of living. Over half a million of the country’s best and brightest have fled in fear for a better life abroad.