Russia has become totalitarian, not just authoritarian. That’s an important distinction, totalitarian societies have much less capacity for independent action.
Romania was totalitarian. Ceausescu was a bloodthirsty dictator. Bucharest was wormed through with underground tunnels that the Securitate would use to move around. He'd murder political opponents by summoning them to a waiting room with a radiation source, giving them cancer and then letting them leave. He was overthrown only after he massacred a ton of students, mowing them down with machine gun fire during a protest.
