This weekend, thousands of people defied the cold and the control in Moscow to show their dislike for Vladimir Putin and what Russia has become under his leadership: corrupt, energy-reliant, centralised, and uncompetitive. It is now a country that must win externally because it can’t help but lose internally. ‘Post-BRIC’, as a new report has it.
My guess is that Putin will ‘win’ the presidential election, and will ensure that a sufficient number of counter-protests make it look as if he has more support than he actually has. That’s exactly the kind of ‘virtual politics’ that Moscow excels at and which Ukraine expert Andrew Wilson has described so well in a book on the subject.
Once in office, Putin will either ‘do a Medvedev’ and pick people for a new administration, including the current president, which show he either understands people’s concerns; or ‘do a Rogozin’ and try to undercut the protests by moving people like former NATO ambassador Dimitri Rogozin closer to power, perhaps even making the ex-nationalist his Prime Minister.
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