Strictly speaking, Russia has quite explicit free speech protections in its constitution. So much so that it separately covers freedom of speech and freedom of press, and in regard to the latter straight up says "censorship is prohibited".
Whenever this topic comes up, the government just nods at the document, as if it had any relation to the real world.
True. I was born in Russia and to be honest I wish Russia would at least "bang the drum of free speech" as well. If you pretend to have some values you actually make people start to believe in them a bit
I'm pretty sure Russia still preaches a lot of admirable things that it doesn't actually practice. Talk is cheap yet people will put stock in it anyway.
