Are you implying Ikea would want anything else than normal, civilized treatment from local authorities? If not, why on earth would Ikea need to slander the local government for anything? I'm sure this is not the kind of publicity either one wants.

Maybe they want normal, civilized treatment. However, they do some serious bashing in process of acquiring that, so I did some bashing too. And! I didn't want anything besides normal, civilized treatment, too! Makes it an interesting social experiment.

The question is: Is their "bashing" of the local government justified? Is your "bashing" of Ikea justified?

To me it seems Ikea is not in this for any political games: it wants to make business, within moral codes it has set up for itself, that should be reasonable to everyone, even you. You on the other hand seem to be in this out of hurt national pride. That is not an argument as compelling as the first.

It is not difficult to understand that Russians do have a hurt national pride, looking at recent history. But don't take it out on Ikea - they're not the one at fault here. Take it out on the corrupt local government. That would be more constructive, and even build up some credit with Russia's current skeptics.