They are advancing in controlling things, but they can't control all these operations either. Although it can be a hurdle for those who don't want to register their operations with the government, either because they don't trust them or because they don't want to pay taxes.

But I have seen those who got caught before being announced as supporting Ukraine and then being punished that way too.

You are right, there are other reasons too, such as the constant conflicts of interest of the current sitting President and the Billionaires leeching on to him and his 'pro Bitcoin' plans, other wise known as the 'scam your own supporters and enrich your self' plan.  The Bitcoin situation looked a lot better when things were more gray than now.  'Bitcoin big in The United States' does not mean things are better, and to some body like me they are definitely not.  From Billionaires pulling a significant portion of the Bitcoin supply to ETFs and all the other things, they do not make Bitcoin any better for me.

This is so ridiculous because the whole point of crypto is financial freedom and now Russia is turning into something else entirely. I still don’t understand why the Russian government wants everyone in their country to depend only on government approved intermediaries to trade their own assets. In my opinion, which I’m sure it won’t count, the Russian government should allow their citizens to use any third party services of their choice, and the restriction is nothing but a treat to financial freedom and personal choice.

Attacking the president or what he does wrong has nothing to do with the status of the Bitcoin industry in the US, and neither do any other conflict of interests that you bring up. He can run as many scams as he wants, that does not change that Bitcoin's regulation and clarity have advanced significantly. It seems that you are strongly intent on defending the EU which has been lacking in innovation in many technology areas, and has no good will toward Bitcoin. I find it strange that you want to defend it when there are no grounds to do it, do you live there or why do you do that? Bitcoin has significantly improved since the US has gotten involved. We might dislike companies, ETFs, institutions and everything because we are small in the system, it does not make the system bad or just makes us a bit angry for being where we are.  It is better to admit these things than to live fantasies say studies.

Bitcoin can be used in many ways, from full use with all its functions to partial use of a limited amount of what it provides. If someone does not want to use it like we use it, or how we want others to use it, that does not make them bad. They are just not fulfilling our expectations, it is time to face the practical world and know the difference.

No, they're not. It's not that easy to get rid of decentralization. Russia and other countries can only restrict/limit people using custodial wallets and/or centralized exchanges. But they can't enforce the rule of law on decentralized protocols/networks. Bitcoin by itself, is a decentralized network.

What's stopping Russians from using BTC in a completely non-custodial manner? Like using DEXs or P2P exchanges to buy/sell BTC, as well as, storing your coins in non-custodial wallets with keys under your control. Throw in TOR + VPN, while you're at it. This makes it impossible for Russia to get its hands outside the centralized world. Just follow the necessary security precautions to avoid getting caught, and there should be nothing to worry about.

There is something the Russian government is not telling her citizens because they can not ban p2p in the country when they are allowed to trade and own bitcoin what does it leave them with. Is the government trying to make everyone in the country to leave their bitcoin for a long term or they just want to frustrate them to stop owing bitcoin they should be open to tell the citizens what they plan to achieve if they ban p2p because they can't be stopped if they have bitcoin in their wallet there have to be a better rule unless they want their citizens to protest which is not good because it will further expose them to danger since everyone will target them having discovered that they own bitcoin.

They can't get rid of decentralization, the strict policy would only affect people in their own country moreover people can still self custody just that no matter how long they hold in a non custodial wallet, they'll likely sell someday and that's where the government would task them from (the government approved exchanges) they just want a policy that would help them easily task bitcoiners in their country nit ending decentralization cause it's not in their power to do so.

Yeah and what is the EU and the US doing? Attempts at client-side filtering, backdoors in encryption, VPN blacklisting. have you seen what the UK has tried to do? I think you guys need some reality check, because you get mostly your news from one-sided propaganda sources and you miss all the bad stuff going on everywhere. All of these players have many power-hungry individuals that want to push the same ideas. The only difference and it is a weak difference is that some of these places still have organizations or mechanisms that can resist the implementation of some of these ideas but only for some time. It is time to check your own garden before you criticize the garden of your neighbor, yours might just be equally ugly as his.

How many large countries are interesting in the core values and principles of Bitcoin? This is a very strange point that you are trying to make, because besides El Salvador not a single country can be claimed to be more interested in the principles of Bitcoin than taxing Bitcoin or crypto gains. So what exactly here does it make Russia look bad? A government is doing just like what most governments are doing. If one side tells you that they are different, that does not mean that they are different or better like they say..