There is an idea firmly rooted among the politically active segment of Russian society — both inside the country and among emigres — that the Russian state as something absolutely personalistic. It is believed that all decisions, down to the smallest ones, are made at the very top, almost personally by President Vladimir Putin. The recent case of the detention of Stoptime band vocalist Diana Loginova, who performed a song by a banned artist, is also illustrative. Many, including well-known opposition figures, immediately said the Kremlin is making a mistake, risking sparking discontent by punishing young people. Implicit in all these statements is the assumption that the decision to detain her was made either in the Kremlin or by people close to it — if not personally by Putin. But such reasoning comes from an oversimplified and almost mythological idea of the Kremlin as a form of Eastern despotism where one ruler decides everything from foreign policy down to whether someone should be arrested for
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