This shit is such a slap in the face by any government.
I mean, these people, this is their home. Leaders come and go, but the people as a whole are what make a country. To make it so they can't protest or even discuss the decisions being made or actions being taken, it takes away all their agency.
You're basically saying "We're just letting you stay here, you'll like what we do and stfu about it". It just doesn't seem like it screams "I'm competent". Leaders should be able to handle criticism. Like on the list of shit you need to be able to handle, that's likely one of the one's topping the list.
If your decisions are so poorly accepted that you need to shutdown the speech of everyday people with jail sentences and gestapo like policing, then it's a lot more probably that it's your decisions that are the problem not the criticism.
Putin seems like a huge p..sy and a bad leader.