Putin identifies with the founder of the Cheka. In some ways, his regime is more brutal, Russian historian said
From sentencing a citizen to 13 years for a bus stop graffiti and erasing court records to rehabilitating the architect of the ‘Red Terror,’ Felix Dzerzhinsky, Russia is rapidly backsliding into its most brutal Soviet-era habits. Russian historial Sergei Lukashevsky contends that Putin’s regime has adopted certain methods of governance that are historically familiar to the Russian bureaucracy, while appealing to Soviet nostalgia.
![Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian foreign intelligence service: 'Most [Russian] soldiers have a low IQ level; they are convicts from the lowest strata of society. This is not an army you could use for sophisticated operations. Instead, they keep sending in troops blindly, sending them to their deaths'](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/1.webp)
