Thibaud:

I agree that Russia is not a fascist state at the moment but the fact that Putin is unilaterally removing agreed upon election procedures, ie the elections of govenors, is a sign that he is setting up a strong man dictatorship style of government. He may be just a figurehead in a KGB(or NKVD,or cheka or whatever the current letterhead for the Russian secret police) directed government. Even acknowleging the massive corruption of the Yeltsin era the fact that the government is now in control of virtually all of the media outlets in Russia and is slowly taking control of the electoral process is the beginnings of a individual or clique style dictatorship. What we can do about it is beyond my imagination.

Regarding his treatment of the Jews remember that at various times Lenin and Stalin initiated generous treatment of the Jewish people that was yanked away when Stalins inbred anti-semitism took over. The fact that he had complete control of all aspects of government, media, and business made that decision easy. Putin is not even close to that type of control but he is initiating the building blocks of that type of system and the fact that some elements of the Russian population look back lovingly on the era when the USSR strode the world as a giant and was not an international joke is very scary to me.