You know Putin ran the KGB right?

He didn't, he wasn't any kind of a boss from what I read. We have your imagination altering things quite a lot right here.

And that’s if they don’t fall out a window first!

By the way, this is not a known joke in Russia. There are also no bears roaming Moscow streets.

Real political opponents have mostly been shunned by state-controlled media to the degree most people considered them madmen or potential terrorists, and then with time passing some died, some grew out of relevance.

A few have been killed, yes, in a very short period of time during the second Chechen war. Starovoitova, Politkovskaya. EDIT: And with no irony if only they hadn't, Russia would be completely different.

Then people of worse kind (like Nemtsov or Sobchak etc, who themselves participated in creating the system of government Putin uses) claimed that they are the opposition now, that didn't quite work out, but interesting that even such a completely fake "elite" can evolve. I'm not sure if Nemtsov's murder was even connected to politics TBF.

And then people like Navalny (initially doing some kind of nationalist activism, against immigration, street crime and corruption) suddenly became the opposition and themselves changed with time. It's fascinating how a society evolves.

This maybe doesn't belong here, point is there hasn't been many defenestrations involved.