Frankfurter Allgemeine has published an interview with Dr. Lev Gudkov, the head of Russia's independent Levada polling centre. The article has been headlined 'Russland bewegt sich in Richtung Diktatur' ('Russia is moving towards dictatorship').
At the beginning of the interview the newspaper's correspondent, Markus Wehner, asked Dr. Gudkov why the Russian government is suppressing the opposition and civil society so harshly. According to the researcher, the reason is that Putin's regime is becoming weaker and less popular and it's trying to strengthen its positions with the help of force.
Dr. Gudkov stresses that the regime is unpopular among young people and the middle class, but it is still relatively popular among other groups of the population thanks to state propaganda.
The head of the Levada centre also believes that the regime is changing and becoming more and more like that of Alexander Lukashenko, who has been ruling Belarus for more than a decade. Russia is moving from an authoritarian regime towards actual dictatorship, and the European countries should react, if they want to change the situation surrounding democracy in Russia for the better.
