Yeah, I think a lot of Westerners, especially Americans, don't understand that everyday life in Putin's Russia is not particularly oppressive, and doesn't necessarily feel all that different from life in the West. That's true of life in most other modern authoritarian states, too. China is a bit more tightly controlled in that internet news is censored, but even there it isn't too hard to get around the Great Firewall, and obviously the full range of consumer products and services is available too.
Looking at the list of countries by GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power (PPP), it looks like Russia is at $27,890 compared to $59,495 in the US and $43,620 in the UK, according the IMF's estimate for 2017. The World Bank's 2016 estimate is a bit more pessimistic ($23,163), but in the same ballpark. These figures are comparable to elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in the same league as Hungary, Poland, Greece, or Turkey and only a little behind Portugal. It does much worse if you look at nominal GDP, not adjusted for purchasing power, but that's not really a fair comparison because it's dependent on the fact that the US dollar is very strong right now while the ruble has been weak since the 2014 oil price collapse. That doesn't affect everyday life much, other than making imports and vacations abroad more expensive.
I don't think the wealth of a country is a very good measure for freedom in general and would dispute the premise behind stinkubus's point. By that measure, Qatar and the UAE are a couple of the freest countries in the world, as is Singapore.
Looking at the list of countries by GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power (PPP), it looks like Russia is at $27,890 compared to $59,495 in the US and $43,620 in the UK, according the IMF's estimate for 2017. The World Bank's 2016 estimate is a bit more pessimistic ($23,163), but in the same ballpark. These figures are comparable to elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in the same league as Hungary, Poland, Greece, or Turkey and only a little behind Portugal. It does much worse if you look at nominal GDP, not adjusted for purchasing power, but that's not really a fair comparison because it's dependent on the fact that the US dollar is very strong right now while the ruble has been weak since the 2014 oil price collapse. That doesn't affect everyday life much, other than making imports and vacations abroad more expensive.
I don't think the wealth of a country is a very good measure for freedom in general and would dispute the premise behind stinkubus's point. By that measure, Qatar and the UAE are a couple of the freest countries in the world, as is Singapore.