No surprise that Vlad doesn't want people to know about Soviet-era crimes. Especially as that's the handbook he follows.

MOSCOW: Russia's Supreme Court will on Thursday consider a request to shut down Memorial, the country's most prominent rights group and a pillar of its civil society.
Founded by Soviet dissidents including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov in 1989, Memorial has built up a huge archive of Soviet-era crimes and campaigned tirelessly for human rights in Russia.
Prosecutors have asked the court to dissolve Memorial International, the group's central structure, for allegedly violating Russia's controversial law on "foreign agents".
The move has sparked widespread outrage, with supporters saying the shuttering of Memorial would mark the end of an era in Russia's post-Soviet democratisation.
It comes in a year that has seen an unprecedented crackdown on opponents of President Vladimir Putin, including the jailing of chief Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and the banning of his organisations.
By taking the once-unimaginable move to close Memorial, the group's founders say Russian authorities would be sending a signal to both the West and domestic opponents.
The message, Memorial founding member Irina Shcherbakova told AFP ahead of the hearing, is: "We are doing to civil society here whatever we want. We will put behind bars whoever we want, we will close down whoever we want."


Russian court to consider closure of top rights group Memorial