So they didn't vote for him but they also don't revolt... With the russian military bogged down in Ukraine seems like the right time to throw one.
Edit: Clarity
Edit: Clarity
There were numerous protests, and they all were suppressed.
> With the russian military bogged down in Ukraine seems like the right time to throw one.
An uprising is not a likely event in a highly atomized society where no one trusts anyone. And Russians were trained to distrust anyone but themselves and their immediate family for at least a century.
Plus, there are plenty of siloviki working on internal affairs, protecting the regime. Witch hunts are all-high since '30s there.
And there's probably no single reason why the history is the way it is. It's absolutely not like "Soviets were there and that's why it is the way it is". There's probably not even two or three or four reasons why - but some complex set of causes and effects that led the world to where it is today.
Don't get me wrong, please. I'm not absolving the responsibility by blaming Soviets for Russian problems. I'm just mentioning one of the potential factors, saying that Soviets had contributed to this.
Soviet legacy is probably way less important than Putin's years. Since USSR fell, Ukrainian people had elected 6 presidents, and Russia had something like two and a half, all hereditary preemniks to each other (and - again - that's not a particular reason why things are the way they are, just another indicator of how different two post-Soviet countries are).
I guess, I should've been more concise and just said that in an atomized society, uprising is considered to be an unlikely event - without trying to delve into reasons why Russian society is atomized.
Not a worry, I appreciate the nuance and I actually agree for the most part with your argument. Historical conditioning is 100% a burden and I agree that system has broken trust across the board in russian society but at some point a combination of living in a low trust/no trust society combined with a horrifying mutation of that system mixed with unrestricted capitalism has to have taken a toll even before being pariah'd and sanctioned to hell and back.
I also know there are Russians that are against this and have put their lives on the line (and lost them) trying to expose putin for what he is and does, I just wish more would follow in their spirit and maybe we can, at least in one section of the world, have a little peace and quiet.