anyone else struck by the similarities between putin's russia and myanmar???
1.journalists live in fear
2.xenophobia reigns
3.no freedom
4.leaders interested only in power
5.one regime causes starvation and the other glorfies stalin who starved the ukraine
6. holding on to power the leaders' only goal
7. one has MRTV-3, the other Russia Today---etc etc etc
.....myanmar is far worse, of course, but they are similar regimes---

the lesson of myanmar for the russian people is that freedom is more important than stability. myanmar's the most stable country in the world-----and look what happens. a government dedicated to stability is really only dedicated to self-survival and power.
ask the people of myanmar what they think of stabilty.

What Russians need to understand is, there's different kinds of stability. There's the kind you see in Norway, and the kind you see in Saudi Arabia (or Burma). To get to the Norwegian kind, you may have to go through a period of severe instability, such as we now see in Ukraine, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Unfortunately, Russians just don't get it. Even among fairly liberal-minded Russians, ridiculing Ukainian democracy has taken the place of jokes about Ukrainian salo as the salve that makes them feel superior. They don't seem to see what a steep price they are paying for their "stabilnost".