Lunchtime Must-Read: Boris Nemtsov: A Final Interview
…People see what this crazy politics led to, they see widespread corruption, they have firsthand experience with the inadequacy of the state. But they still believe in the leader because for the past several years, the leader was doing one thing very well: He was brainwashing the Russians. He implanted them with a virus of inferiority complex towards the West, the belief that the only thing we can do to amaze the world is use force, violence and aggression. [Putin] programmed my countrymen to hate strangers. He persuaded them that we need to rebuild the former Soviet order, and that the position of Russia in the world depends entirely on how much the world is afraid of us. He managed to do all these things with Goebbels-style propaganda…. The responsibility for spilling both Russian and Ukrainian blood… lies not only with Putin, but also with such gentlemen as Konstantin Ernst [director general of Channel One] or Dmitry Kiselyov [head of the new, Russian-government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya]. They operate in accordance with the simple principles of Joseph Goebbels: Play on the emotions; the bigger the lie, the better; lies should be repeated many times. This propaganda is directed to the simple men; there is no room for any questions, nuances. Unfortunately, it works…. We need to work as quickly as possible to show the Russians that there is an alternative, that Putin’s policy leads to degradation and a suicide of the state. There is less and less time to wake up…