Also, I'd like to highlight that: 1) Putin has risen to power well before the existence of Internet fake news. Complex factors justify his political existence: economic depression of the country in the 90s; religion; the support of Russian oligarchs; fear of political instability. To say that they were successful in Russia is an oversimplification. 2) They did, however, play a big role in the 2016 US elections :-)
That would be preferable to an enemy doing it, as with the Russia / Trump affair, because your own state has less interest in ending itself than its enemies. Probably close to zero interest.
It's horrifying to see these posts - west has many of those criticized evil structures from China and somehow the conversation still ends up in xenophobia instead of approaches how we can purge these things from our societies.
This also goes for the root comment - notice how they complain about Huawei not publishing their code into western owned corporate repository beholden to western unaccountable laws like DMCA. Also notice how it ignores that iOS, completely censored by a Californian corporation, exists. They just care that these violations of freedoms are happening under a different flag, not that they exist.