Even ignoring the context, Russia is more free than US in anarchical sense, as you can do more things without repercussions there than in US. US jails population vastly outnumbers Russias, and you don't need a fishing license in Russia :)
That is very questionable. Try being gay in Russia and then tell me how free you are. It wont be the government oppressing you usually (oh they will - see Pussy Riot) it'll be your neighbors, employers, cops, etc. There are other "oppressors" than rule of law, there's also mob mentalities.
Russia is also very low on any human/political freedom index. Yeah, and bragging about shitty wildlife conservationism isn't impressive either. Reminds me of the Chinese who are patriotic, then don a mask to not breath in the filthy polluted air they live with.
[to add: I have no interest in defending Russia, and no skin in the game. However the cheap shots annoy me]
And he knows it, which is why he's trying to GTHO of there (even at the price of a reasonably short prison sentence in the U.S.).
There's a reason Snowden would leave Russia at the earliest possibility.
I'm skeptical Russia would allow someone like William Binney to walk around saying the things he has been for years. Or that Russia wouldn't essentially rig a sentence up for someone like Daniel Ellsberg, given Russia's extraordinarily corrupt justice system.
And to reply to a sister comment - you don't have to be gay to run into various trouble you wouldn't expect to run into in the West, though being one will likely make matters worse.
It is certainly true that standard of living is lower in Russia, but is better than many other countries you consider "free".
When you demand "facts", do you demand definite proof that the government did it (a bloody hard thing to obtain in the case of a murdering government), or are you claiming that the UK murders a similar amount of journalists?
As to "countries that I consider free" - I don't know where you get insight into my thinking; I was talking specifically about the UK which the grandparent brought up.
I have to admit that I'm sick and tired of relativism brought to a point where black and white are supposed to be indistinguishable. Seriously, who'd you rather fuck with, the Putin government or the current UK government? I think we all know the answer. Why are people wishing to sound "objective" so eager to ignore the obvious?
"The number of middle-class Russians could halve to 20 percent, taking it back to the same level as after the 1998 default and devaluation, says Evgeny Gontmakher, chief economist at the Institute of Contemporary Development, whose board of trustees is headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/putin-s-mi...