[simpleman]

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-o...uke-2022-3

"Three members of the Russian Communist Party, which usually votes in line with Putin's agenda"

"Led for three decades by the Soviet Union’s former propaganda minister Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has morphed from radical, civil war-threatening revanchists in the 1990s to a component of the “systemic opposition” that gives voters an option to register discontent without threatening the rule of Putin’s United Russia party. In exchange for cooperation, Putin has helped to achieve a litany of Communist goals: the rehabilitation of Soviet leaders, the subjugation of media to the state, the marginalization of (some) oligarchs, and increased combativeness with the West.

In turn, Communist criticism of Putin is rarely more than rhetorical. "