Exactly the problem with dictatorships. You can't have the ruler "look bad" even for trivial stuff, and he'd rather send thousands or tens of thousands of peopl

Exactly the problem with dictatorships. You can't have the ruler "look bad" even for trivial stuff, and he'd rather send thousands or tens of thousands of people to their death, than be embarrassed himself. We can argue whether Russia is a dictatorship or not, but I'd say it's a lot closer to one than to democracy, especially when opposition leaders and protesters are arrested, and everyone else in the Parliament votes for whatever Putin says, out of fear for their lives, and elections are being robbed like there's no tomorrow, while Putin gets to interpret the Constitution as he's being allowed to rule virtually forever in Russia. If Russia had a functioning democracy and Parliament, it wouldn't matter that Putin was "embarrassed" and made to look like a fool (which I don't think anyone thought that, at least not from outside of Russia, but it seems to be more of a thing in his mind).