The point I was making was not about assigning or excusing blame to Russian or American citizens. That is as constructive as assigning blame for some IT outage.
It was highlighting the differences in the systems of government that allows for course correction when the government starts making poor decisions.
The Russian government has set itself on a course, and then shut down the processes by which that course can be altered by (restricting information, disseminating false information, arresting protestors, opposition politicians)
