Believe it or not, Russia today is very free country with very good life for an average Joe, comparing to the UK. And ReactOS story is just another proof of that.
And to reply to a sister comment - you don't have to be gay to run into various trouble you wouldn't expect to run into in the West, though being one will likely make matters worse.
It is certainly true that standard of living is lower in Russia, but is better than many other countries you consider "free".
When you demand "facts", do you demand definite proof that the government did it (a bloody hard thing to obtain in the case of a murdering government), or are you claiming that the UK murders a similar amount of journalists?
As to "countries that I consider free" - I don't know where you get insight into my thinking; I was talking specifically about the UK which the grandparent brought up.
I have to admit that I'm sick and tired of relativism brought to a point where black and white are supposed to be indistinguishable. Seriously, who'd you rather fuck with, the Putin government or the current UK government? I think we all know the answer. Why are people wishing to sound "objective" so eager to ignore the obvious?
"The number of middle-class Russians could halve to 20 percent, taking it back to the same level as after the 1998 default and devaluation, says Evgeny Gontmakher, chief economist at the Institute of Contemporary Development, whose board of trustees is headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/putin-s-mi...