For pro-Russian acoyltes like yourself - if ineed you are a real person and not just a figment of someone else's imagination in a propaganda lab somewhere - Snyder's arguments, based on checkable facts as well as his opinions about those facts, will always read badly. Whereas pro-Russian propagnada is more often than not based unchekable, fresh air facts the kind of which I tend to avoid, but you obviously feel the need to promote. That's your choice and good luck with it, but such make-believe stories can never stand up to scrutiny!

And yes, we have choice! Something which we in the West make frequently and freely on a variety of subjects, without coercion, and without fear of internment should we say something that goes against the government line.

I didn't define fascism (not fashism!!) at any point, in this post - but if you are talking about Tim Snyders comments about what constitutes fascism; namely this:

"Fascism, a specific form of tyranny, also helps to explain today’s Russia, which is characterized by a cult of personality, a de facto single party, mass propaganda, the privileging of will over reason, and a politics of us-versus-them."

...then tell me which part of that isn't true, when patently every word of it is, and only someone who has swallowed Russian mistruths and propaganda whole would try to deny any part of it.

I never said at any point Russia was a free market economy...so you are confused!

And in Russia the state is Putin, and Putin controls the oligarchs...just ask Khordorkovsky, or Abramovich, or Timchenko, or Rotenberg, or Pugachev, or Berezovsky, or even Maganov, who became the most recent thorn in Putin's side to 'accidentally' fall out of a window - so unimaginative!

Please don't bother to reply because I shall not respond again.

Have a good day.