comment: >
  
  That's pretty normal for such regimes.
  There is stuff which they can do openly, because it's supported or at least tolerated by many. Then there is stuff where they need some amount of plausible deniability, so their supporters can feign ignorance.  And finally things which has to be kept secret because it's just so obviously indefensible.
  To some extent this even applies to functioning democracies, but our grey areas and scope for actions "beyond the line" tend to be much narrower. The US have expended these with their secret court system past 9/11 (technically the systems existed since the 70s, but their use was much expanded in the War on Terror), but it's still much narrower than in a country like Russia.
context: It'd be a weird irony if the leader of the hacker group got asylum in the US for revealing this. >
  
  His name? Eduard Snegov >
  
  That's hilarious if you know a bit of Russian. Sneg means snow >
  
  Thanks for helping us non russian speakers to get into the joke. >
  
  It was funny without knowing Russian. Now that I know a little more, it's even funnier.  Like a joke onion. >
  
  Snowgres have layers. >
  
  Not everyone like snogres. Proletariat like suffering. Suffering have layers. >
  
  You know what everybody likes? Parfaits. >
  
  You ever meet anybody who said "Hey, I don't like no parfaits", parfaits are delicious! >
  
  “Parfaits may be the most delicious food on the WHOLE DAMN PLANET.” >
  
  The State Duma passes what ever needs to pass, so I doubt its "Illegal" >
  
  It's actually kind of amazing - they can make the law say whatever they want, but they don't even bother and still do illegal stuff left and right