So, I've seen a lot of support for Vladimir Putin on this sub, which has always confused me. For a place that fears oppressive, corrupt governments, Putin should be terrifying. With this being an American-centric sub I'm guessing maybe people just don't know much about him, so let's break it down:

To start with, he was a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years before getting into politics. He was also briefly the Director of the KGB successor agency, the FSB. This isn't particularly damning on it's own, but with the 3-letter agency hatred around here I figure it's worth mentioning.

Putin eventually worked his way up in politics, becoming a close supporter of Boris Yeltsin, whose regime became characterized by rampant corruption and abuses of power, even leading to an armed uprising outside of the Russian parliament that was forcibly put down by the army. Yeltsin appointed Putin as Prime Minister in 1999, and made it known that he wanted Putin to be his successor as President. Later in December of the year, Yeltsin finally gave in to the mounting opposition against him and resigned, thus making Putin the acting President. Putin's first Presidential Decree ensured that corruption charges against the outgoing President and his relatives would not be pursued.

Eventually, Putin's second term as President is over, and he is not allowed to run for a third by the constitution. So what does he do? One of his cabinet members, Dmitry Medvedev is elected and the very next day after he is passed the Presidency, Dmitry appoints Putin as Prime Minister again. Can you imagine the uproar if an American President was given a position in the White House after their term was up? The laws are changed, allowing Putin to run for President again after Medvedev is done.

Putin becomes President again in 2012, amid widespread protesting and accusations of vote rigging/fraud. A pro-Putin counter-protest is organized, and according to Wikipedia "Some of the attendees stated that they had been paid to come, were forced to come by their employers, or were misled into believing that they were going to attend a folk festival instead". I haven't investigated that claim, but I thought it was interesting after all the fake protest accusations we've had recently in American politics.

His third "term" as President has continued to the present day.

Now that we've covered his rise to power, we can talk about the real conspiracy material:

1. Journalists who say/investigate things critical to the government are assassinated. We're not talking suspiciously timed suicides (although there are some of those), we're talking journalists getting gunned down in the street or openly poisoned. Here is a list of journalists who have been killed in Russia since the Yeltsin years. Think Russia is just a violent place and there's no connection to Putin? Then I would direct you to the case of Vladimir Kara-Murza; an outspoken critic of Putin who was poisoned, narrowly survived, returned to Russia, and was poisoned AGAIN.

2. Putin jails those he doesn't kill. Sometimes, he does both. You've probably heard of the Magnitsky Act. It is named after Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor representing Hermitage Capital Management, who uncovered a huge conspiracy involving the police force working with known criminals to destroy the company from within (it would take a while to explain the whole scandal here, check out his Wikipedia page that I linked for more info). After contacting the Russian government with his findings, the government arrested Magnitsky and held him for 11 months with no trial, during which he became very sick but received little treatment. Eight days before the limit which a prisoner can be held without incarceration, Magnitsky died. His death was attributed to various causes, including a heart attack, but a 2011 post-mortem concluded that he had been beaten to death. The outrage over this blatant cover-up and mistreatment led to the passing of the Magnitsky act. Coincidentally, the twice-poisoned Vladimir Kara-Murza was one of those involved in lobbying Congress to pass the act. Hmm....

3. As President, Putin has been paid a relatively low salary, which has often been officially the lowest of all Kremlin officials. However, through some miracle of finance, he is currently estimated to be one of the richest men in the entire world. Google it, pick any source you like.

4. Finally, there is the blatant propaganda spread by Russian state media. This includes bizarre set-ups like when Putin went for a dive and just happened to discover ancient Greek urns, or the near-hysteric hate directed at homosexuals.

This is only listing some of the most obvious corruption, scandals, and oppression that has surrounded Putin's political career, but this post is already way longer than I intended it to be. I know we all like hearing him call out the U.S. government on shit, but just remember: the enemy of your enemy... might be just another enemy.

EDIT Bonus Propaganda: but at least its catchy