Yeah, the police are probably corrupt (random URL to back up my hypothesis: [0]), I remember reading a great book about corruption, Thieves of State, discussed here [1], it talks why the police would be defending the system:
> Any highly corrupt society is bound together by a series of interlocking reciprocities: the local policeman who shakes down a passing civilian must in turn pay tribute to his police supervisor, who must pay his supervisor, and so forth; favors or spoils may be distributed in the other direction.
My guess is the cops justify their work like in Stanford prison experiment, and they accept without further thinking what Putin says that the protesters are "foreign agents".
> Any highly corrupt society is bound together by a series of interlocking reciprocities: the local policeman who shakes down a passing civilian must in turn pay tribute to his police supervisor, who must pay his supervisor, and so forth; favors or spoils may be distributed in the other direction.
My guess is the cops justify their work like in Stanford prison experiment, and they accept without further thinking what Putin says that the protesters are "foreign agents".
[0] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cost-of-corruption-in-ru... [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev...