This guy actually said that Medvedev of all people served to "bridge the gap" betwen the liberal hipsters in big cities and Putin's hick base in smaller towns and villages. What a load of bullshit that is. I am not Russian, but I lived in Russia for a few years, and still spend 2-3 months per year in Russia (and I am writing this from Moscow at the moment), and this is by far stupidest explanation of the situation I've ever heard even from Americans. Putin was and still remained popular because the people used to work for 30-50 per month and now they don't any more.  The average salary is now around $700, and it was even higher before 2014, and the fall of average purchasing power of Russian citizens didn't make Putin any more popular, but he honestly hasn't lost much of the popularity because no one in their right mind thinks that it is something anyone from Russia could influence on. <br><br>Nothing which happened in 2014, e.g. the annexation of Crimea made Putin more popular in Moscow and Petersburg, it just made Americans less popular due to other neocons staging yet another totally spontaneous Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Also, Crimeans wanted out of Ukraine ever since independence, they've just got their excuse now. Just look at the voting patters of Crimeans ever since the Ukraine independence or the history of polls made by UN or Pew in the previous decades. The parties or coalitions winning the elections on Crimea were either heavily pro-independence or pro-union-with-Russia. <br><br>Not to mention that newly established Ukrainian government, thought that the first thing after the coup-de-etat, they need to cancel the status of all "minority languages", which includes Russian, even though Russian is de-factor majority language in the country. Like average salary being $100 is not a priority due to an economic crisis produced by the revolution is not a priority but "the language question" is. I can continue this for hours, but I can't just waste more time on this video.<br><br>FFS, you and your neocon bullshit Lex. Why is YouTube even recommending this bullshit of a channel to me anymore. I am just waiting for a moment you advocate for invasion of Iran or some other neocon/neolib bullshit like that.