Next Step To Turn Russia Into North Korea

 This morning, I was watching German N-TV news, and this short piece came up.

So....Dimitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson....stood up and said that those now leaving Russia....are 'traitors'.

This goes in step with what Putin said yesterday....as a 'warning' of sorts....that the west intends to destroy Russia by using the traitors.

What'll happen now?  I expect by the end of next week....some decree to come down from Putin to say....no one exits Russia without permission.

Yeah, it's one of the bigger steps to making Russia into another North Korea.

Being able to control the exit business?  There are around 57,000 km's or 36,000 miles of border to Russia, and I'd generally say it's practically impossible to control the border....in the fashion that existed in the 1960s or 1970s.

Fourteen countries border Russia, and with the exception of China and Belarus.....I'd say that exiting through twelve of the countries is remarkably easy, at present.

How many folks in the past two weeks have left?  Unknown, and I doubt if Putin or the KGB has an accurate count.  

I sat last night and watched a German news guy interview a Russian couple (mid-20s), who gave the interview in the middle of last week.....with bags packed and announcing their intentions.  They figured by Monday of this week....they would be somewhere outside of the country (not giving that vital bit of info away).  There was no reason to remain....in their mind.

Would I be worried (if I were Putin) if just 5,000 people had left in the past two weeks?  No.  But if this number business was up around 40,000....with a fair number who were professional degree people....it'd start to bother me.  You certainly could not allow a quarter of a million to pack up over the next three months and exit.

Recreating the gulag experience to convince people it's better to just accept the North Korea lifestyle?  Well....that worked in the 1930s.  But I just can't see you taking a middle-class working people, who are part of the dynamic to a successful economic system, and sending them off to Siberia for a year or two....convincing them of just accepting Putin-stan as a wonderful place.

The oligarch society seeing through all of this?  I would imagine they sit there nightly....consuming a fair amount of alcohol, and just wondering how anything can continue exist with Putin's style of management running the country.