Associate
Putin got elected partly due to a bombing campaign the FSB undertook against it's own people, so their definition of what is rational and ours are just not the same.
I dont think poeple understand how openly corrupt things are in Russia, and its a everyday thing that people take for granted.
For example - Its election time, students at the university get brought together and told, you have a choice, 1. Vote for Putin and get a monetery reward, or 2. Leave the university. And just to make sure, named voting bins are set up in a public area with a guard to note who uses each bin.
If you want to resist - your education and career are over.
This is also pretty much the same at the workplace as well, vote P or leave, if you dont vote P it will go into your official employment book which you need to give to every employer when working for them. Employers dont want their business to suddently have tax, or banking problems so they enforce to keep themselves from becoming on the radar.