Yes, a lot of Russian politics are pretty worrying and negatively impact the lives of all kinds of people, but if you paint everyone in such broad strokes, you end up coating the entire world.
Yes, a lot of Russian politics are pretty worrying and negatively impact the lives of all kinds of people, but if you paint everyone in such broad strokes, you end up coating the entire world.
It is oppressive and dangerous.
Besides, a lot of anti-nonheteronormative politics in Russia likely have more to do with political tactics than with actual convictions of Putin or anybody else. For example the Russian Orthodox church is still immensely powerful in many parts of Russia and condemning "sexual deviants" is an easy way to score points with them and the corresponding demographic (and thus voters).
There's a nice phrase that was introduced by a Jew documenting the trial of one of the organizers of the Holocaust: the banality of evil. Most acts of evil are either well-intentioned or simply "accidentally" evil -- the evil itself is merely a consequence or side-effect.
Yes, you should oppose repressive policies. Vehemently so. But "Russia" as a whole is far more complex and complicated than any individual policy or group of policies.
I'm strongly opposed to a lot of what the US is and does, both as a government and as the people that elected and sustains that government's actions. But it would be absurd to deride people who say anything good at all about the US or Americans simply for not immediately qualifying their statements with criticism.
I wouldn't want to live in Russia or the US. I think both countries are guilty of all sorts of crimes against their own citizens and mankind in general, each in their own uniquely horrible ways. But that doesn't mean they have no redeeming qualities.
Heck, even Hitler was a vegetarian and had an affection for dogs.