Are you serious? The parliament just passed a law that proposed up to 15 years in jail to those who contest the government’s official narrative regarding the “invasion”.
In that environment where that’s the line, there’s still nobody forced to express support of Putin.
The media environment of Russia is less free than that of the US and even less free than the UK (where you are comically not really free to criticize Russian oligarchs) but it’s not totalitarian.
We know that Russia is very nationalistic from the success of companies like Yandex or VK. Supporting Putin fits very well with nationalist sentiment. If you think that kind of nationalistic sentiment that leads to supporting strongmen can only happen in an unfree media environment, support for Erdogan is a good counterexample. In Germany, a majority of those with Turkish heritage support Erdogan despite German society disliking Erdogan.
In that environment where that’s the line, there’s still nobody forced to express support of Putin.
The media environment of Russia is less free than that of the US and even less free than the UK (where you are comically not really free to criticize Russian oligarchs) but it’s not totalitarian.
We know that Russia is very nationalistic from the success of companies like Yandex or VK. Supporting Putin fits very well with nationalist sentiment. If you think that kind of nationalistic sentiment that leads to supporting strongmen can only happen in an unfree media environment, support for Erdogan is a good counterexample. In Germany, a majority of those with Turkish heritage support Erdogan despite German society disliking Erdogan.