Putin Regime Quotes

The Putin regime's income comes from oil and gas exports. If we could crash the price of these commodities, we could bankrupt the regime.

The United States must look beyond Mr. Putin. His regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside. His Russia is not a great power on par with America. It is a gas station run by a corrupt, autocratic regime.

There are many facts showing that Putin's people enriched themselves by using power mechanisms so that's why for them losing power means losing their fortunes.

Vladimir Putin is a dictator. He's not a leader. Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know Russian history and they don't know Vladimir Putin.

In Syria, Vladimir pUTIN sees the chance to make millions of refugees and weaponise them. The US has to take a lead in defending the values of the free world.

Getting rid of the Magnitsky Act is one of the top, if not the top, priorities of the Putin regime.

Edward Snowden gave a little press conference today. He is apparently seeking temporary asylum in Russia. Because, you know, when you're tired of the government snooping into everything you do, Putin's Russia is definitely the place you want to go.

On Putin's order, corrupt apparatchiks and crony oligarchs rob Russians of their nation's wealth and resources.

We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial -whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.

The downfall of democratic institutions in Russia doesn't add to the self-confidence of either [Vladimir] Putin or his friends, as the loss of power could lead to repercussions in Russian society.

When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why haven't you left? I would say, I'm staying, it's my home. He can leave! It felt very good to say that. But now - he wins. It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. And yet he's gotten people out of the country. That's the most terrifying thing about the current situation, and for the future of the country.

The sanctions and travel restrictions would have to be far more comprehensive to be truly painful for [Vladimir] Putin and his inner circle. And the new middle class should also feel the effects of what he is doing. For instance, we should ask those who wish to enter the EU whether they have visited illegally occupied Crimea in the last few months and, if the answer is "yes," deny them a visa.

Putin needs to terrorize his own elite. He is more afraid of those in his own surroundings than any protests; there are people there who are at least as critical as I am because they see up close that the system doesn't work. He wants to silence them.

True, Putin's Russia does not dream of joining the E.U., but Russia's stability depends on preserving the European nature of its regime.

The regime is in trouble economically and can no longer offer anything to its citizens. That's why [Vladimir] Putin has to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, so he can serve his people the fairy tale of Russian pride and regaining its strength as a major power.

There is no democracy in Russia. Dictators do not go away through the vote. Putin relies on riot police, thousands of them, with heavy equipment, fighting Russian youngsters from opposition.

Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent.

For the last ten years, I've been trying to avoid getting killed by Putin's regime, and there already exists a trail of dead bodies connected to its desire to see me dead.

When has a Democratic political activist been poisoned by the GOP, or vice versa? We are not the same as #Putin.

LGBT people are at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on democracy.

Putin has made life difficult for a lot of Russia's richest men; they don't like the sanctions; they don't like the war with the West. Many of them have houses and families and businesses in the West, and so I can see them being unhappy. But at the moment, the political system is so constructed that it would be very difficult for them to leave. That's not saying it couldn't change.

Russia is so feudal in its system of patronage and reward that it is virtually impossible for a leader to hand over power without controlling his successor or at least receiving an exemption from prosecution - something Mr. Putin granted his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999.