"We came from a place where we're used to dealing with oligarchs who control everything and manipulate everything... Putin's creation, the stable political system that he's ruled over all this time is a sort of "sovereign democracy," as they call it, which is like a managed democracy. You have an oligarchy, and you have this sort of benevolent dictator. All the political parties are an expression of that, none of them are really independent — they're all created and maintained by the hidden power structures. And in a way, that's what America is today."