You're reading: RFE/RL: 2020 or 1937 in Russia

Opinion polls pointed to declining trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin at home and abroad, while a less formal survey – a prank involving a portrait in an elevator – provided a laugh-inducing lesson on shifting attitudes toward the Russian president. On the darker side, long prison terms for defendants who alleged they were tortured in a trumped-up terrorism case drew comparisons to Stalin’s show trials.

Read more here.