I don't think so. I think that people of any country have to look at all existing opportunities. For North Korea, some African or Asian countries there's no point in waiting for good and revolution is the only way for changes. As for Russia (and, possibly, for China), we have the options. The political game is quite dangerous here and political institutions are imperfect but they still may evolve in time to something better. Putin, compared to the dictators in the rest of the world, is very soft and weak: his power is based on popular support and he is well-aware that he has to distribute wealth to the people, boosting economy and imitating western-style democracy. Either he will keep the wealth growing (and thus the country open - it's essential for Russian economy, so millenials will travel and get educated about the benefits of western life style), or the popular discontent will blow him out of Kremlin. We still hope that the first option will be the case. We need more educated people to build reliable and inclusive political system.

Putin has built a very stable power structure, I'll give him that. And he's crazy popular in Russia, not least because of the fact that he controls all the media.

The only two ways I can see his regime could be defeated are:

* Turmoil within his ranks leading destabilizing his power structure

* Significant economic downturn (e.g. oil price falls or oil trading is hindered by sanctions)

One could argue that the growing discontent with Putin among the younger generation could lead to his demise, but I don't think it would work. They can protest all they want but as long as 90% of the population are successfully hypno-toaded, Putin can deal with the protesters in any way he wants.

I am not supporting Putin and co. I don't like many things happening at the moment in my country. But if you put revolution on a scale - no thank you.

I don't particularly see "blind support" in his last couple of posts. He acknowledged that some don't support the regime as-is, didn't directly state support or not in his own part, and explained part of the situation that stops those people railing against it (the fear of history repeating badly), raising what could be an interesting discussion point if I had time to take that slightly off-topic detour right now.

You on the other hand seem to be blindly throwing around assumptions (you can't logically deduce "supports X" from "doesn't make a point of denouncing X") instead of taking the more mature opportunity of delving into the points mentioned.