Why would you think that they feel a need to be the "good guys"? They are doing their part in perpetuating a power structure that benefits them personally.
> Any highly corrupt society is bound together by a series of interlocking reciprocities: the local policeman who shakes down a passing civilian must in turn pay tribute to his police supervisor, who must pay his supervisor, and so forth; favors or spoils may be distributed in the other direction.
My guess is the cops justify their work like in Stanford prison experiment, and they accept without further thinking what Putin says that the protesters are "foreign agents".
[0] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cost-of-corruption-in-ru... [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev...
No, many Russian police are well aware that protests in Russian are often driven by honest local frustration with the Russian government, and these frustrated people do not need pushing from abroad. (I speak from personal acquaintance with several.) Some police officers might even sympathize with the protesters’ lack of opportunities. However, modern Russia is a country where people affiliated with the force structures live much better than the average citizen, and so naturally they want to hang on to their own families’ prosperity at all costs.
If Russia ever liberalizes, then somehow appeasing the force structures for their loss of privilege and stability is something the new regime will have to ensure, distasteful as it might seem. During the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime the US insisted on completely disenfranchising the old Baathist functionaries, for example, and this was a major driver of the civil war and instability that ensued.
Big "if" right there.
It's a lot more likely that the US and the rest of the western world will continue to slide into oligarchical-drive corruption.
Lots more likely.
It was much better done, even if it was part of a TV show.