Crowds with banners amassed on red square, surrounded by thousands of military personnel and truck loads of heavy artillery. This was not a record anti-Putin protest but the annual Victory Day parade held every May 9th in honor of the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany. In a country that lost over 30 million during that war, it is traditionally the largest and most widely celebrated national holiday, what July 4th is to Americans and Bastille Day is to the French.

Yet this year, the commemorations hardly made the front pages. The top story on liberal Internet daily Gazeta.ru announced that detained leftist leader Udaltsov would contest the 15 day prison sentence he received after being arrested on the eve of Putin’s I nauguration. The piece jostled for priority with the 15 day sentence handed down to fellow opposition leader Alexei Navalny and breaking news concerning the tragic loss over Indonesia of a prototype Sukhoi superjet, Russia’s latest civilian airliner.

It’s disheartening to think that a mere half century after defeating Nazism, the former superpower struggles to make peace with its own self, let alone make a plane that can stay in the air for more than a half hour. For both regime and opposition, not much about Russia feels very victorious these days.

For my 93 year old grandfather, who went through Kursk and Warsaw before fighting his way into Berlin, each of his past 67 Victory Days has been an almost religious event.  Let’s hope that he lives to see it return to the front pages as something over than a mere footnote to a torrent of bad news.

It’s certainly not confetti and roses that are currently falling through the air on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s Monday inauguration. At the time of writing, thousands of protesters have been engaged in a street battle with Moscow police units. Russia’s three main opposition leaders – Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Boris Nemtsov – have all been arrested this afternoon. Navalny, famous as the man behind crowd-sourced anti-corruption website RosPil, also had his phone taken away.

According to the liberal newspaper Gazeta.ru, the BBC, and tweets from eyewitnesses, protesters at Kammenny Bridge, site of the “March of the Millions” against the government, have started throwing rocks and bottles at anti-riot police. One protesters has been spotted with a heavy head wound. Conflicting accounts describe police provoking a stampede and protesters throwing molotov cocktails. So far, 6 protesters have been hospitalised but the crowds refuse to disperse.

This is not how Putin would have imagined his return to the presidency to look like. Tomorrow’s meticulously planned million dollar celebrations are slated to include the finest sturgeon and caviar for 2000 elite guests (some of whom include top officials said to be charging businessmen upwards of $500,000 to reserve a seat next to them at the table).

It is not yet clear, however, whether Putin’s wife Lyudmila will appear at the festivities.

Today’s protest, unless it results in some sort of police massacre, is unlikely to destabilise the new government too much. After all, who could have imagined that, four years after the motorcade of George Bush got pelted with eggs by people who felt he had stolen the 2000 election from Al Gore, he would be comfortably re-elected? Yet Putin loves to feel loved, and can be notoriously thin skinned about open displays of defiance, however small. His parade will still go ahead, but now, he will be forced to bring an umbrella.

Source: Google Images

In the beginning of April, Russia officially launched the ‘Eurasia dialogue’ that will serve as the groundwork for discussions on creating a Eurasian Union. Furthermore, in October 2011 then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin voiced a new integration project that invoked a controversial reaction form the West. Many talked about Russia showing its appetite for imperial domination over Post-Soviet states, likened to that of the old Soviet Union times. Nevertheless, Russia nowadays seems to be less interested in imperial unilateralism, but seeks more pragmatic goals and realistic forms of effective economic development in the post-Soviet space.

In his October article Putin revealed his project for a single economic space for Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and others willing to participate. Its aim was coordinated macroeconomic, transportation and competition policies that would later include single visa and migration policies. The Chief of the ‘Eurasia Dialogue’ initiative, Andrei Klimov, mentioned that the Union would encompass humanitarian components and only some elements of common external policy, ‘as hardly any country will be willing to delegate its foreign policy.’ Finally, the project is positioned as voluntary and non-exclusive: no one will be forced to participate while everyone is welcome to become a member.

Many in the West ‘traditionally’ view this integration as an attempt to consolidate post-Soviet space into a new ‘evil empire’ with an unprecedented domination by Russia, despite Putin on several occasions rejecting any comparison of the new economic initiative with that of USSR model. Although Russia will hardly take on a position of a unilateral sponsorship, and the union does not possess a unifying ideology similar to that of the Soviet times, opponents fear that the interactions within the union will have to follow Kremlin-established rules. What’s more, a closer cooperation in the region will limit Western presence and its ability to reach out to former Soviet Union Republics. This skepticism is likely to persist as long as the working mechanisms of the Eurasian Union, as well as the balance between its economic and political goals, remain a work in progress.

Aside from watchful attitudes, many remain skeptical about how attainable Eurasian integration is. Although some of its prerequisites already exist, i.e. the common language, experience with common currency and absence of regional customs in the past, skeptics suggest that they might not be enough. Furthermore, history could become more of an impediment than of a unifying factor. Historic memories, fears of losing sovereignty and available alternatives (NATO, EU) could all speak against Post-Soviet states deciding to join the project. For instance, as much as Russia would like to see Ukraine in the Eurasia Union, the latter has been reluctant to participate amid ongoing tensions between the two regarding energy policies. It is also not clear how Belarus will be able to open up its economy considering how it is intertwined with the will of its political leader. Meanwhile Moldova, and even friendly Armenia, so far preferred the status of observers.

Amid all the existing skepticism, a Eurasian Union as an economic initiative standing for a more effective economic and mutually beneficial cooperation, is, without doubt, worth trying. The foreseen structure deems equal economic participation of all the parties that is reflected in the cooperation principle: ‘one country – one voice.’ Nevertheless, Russia holds the biggest share of economic potential of the commonwealth, which raises the important question: Will Russia be able to translate its outmatched economic potential into an equal vote? This will be the definitive answer to the hopes, fears and skepticism of all, inside and out.

You can tell a lot about the guilty conscience of a nation’s elite by its photoshopping.

During the 1930s, Communist leaders executed in Stalin’s purges were famously airbrushed out of official photographs to cover up the facts of their brutal demise, as well as ensure that they do not become magnets for opposition. An entire industry of skilled KGB artists and photographers sprung up as a result.

On the other hand, in the 1980s, Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness, became obsessed with revisiting the memory of Stalinist crimes in order to rehabilitate the “good” Communism of Lenin. Emerging high technology allowed a different kind of photographic manipulation – using computers to retouch and restore historical images to unearth the “authentic” content.

These days, the kind of photoshopping engaged in reflects the ultimate displacement of politics by money.

According to news reports, Russia’s Orthodox Church “admitted it doctored a photo of Patriarch Kirill on its official website to erase his expensive watch, after bloggers ridiculed the efforts. The picture in question shows the patriarch sitting at a polished wooden table with Russia’s Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov in 2009. While his wrist appears to be covered with a black tunic, a reflection on the table reveals a fancy watch”.

Embarrassingly, the Patriarch initially denied he had worn the watch, calling the photos a “collage” before backtracking and fessing up to the $30,000 Breguet (at least he had the panache to wear the brand preferred by such classic figures of Russian literature as Eugene Onegin, who lived by its “sleepless chimes”!).

While this was the first case of watch-airbrushing, it’s not the first time that Russian journalists and bloggers have caught their leaders red-wristed. Two years ago, the Vedomosti newspaper analysed watches worn by top politicians and came up with some shocking results – for example, Moscow’s deputy mayor wore a $950,000 number!

The Patriarch’s quick retreat and promise to punish those responsible for the airbrushing reveals that, despite Putin’s re-election, Russia’s internet remains an powerful independent watchdog.

(Getty Images via CNN)

Poor Mitt Romney. He tried to play the All American tough guy, opportunistically seizing on Obama’s ‘hot mic’ moment with Medvedev to score some cheap Cold War points by calling Russia America’s “greatest geopolitical foe”. And he succeeded, at least in assuming the “John McCain” mantle in the presidential race.

Bashing Russia has become an intrinsic part of Republican electoral campaigning etiquette. In fact, Romney is nowhere as good at it as his predecessor John McCain, who spent much of the 2008 looking into Putin’s eyes and not ironically seeing the letters K, G, and B. But unfortunately for the GOP front-runner, when it comes to going head to head with Obama, McCain is probably the last person he should be emulating.

As soon as the Georgia war broke out, in the middle of the presidential campaign, McCain jumped on the hawk bandwagon to denounce Russia before it was even clear what had happened. Obama, on the other hand, initially took a much more measured stance. The beltway commentariat immediately praised McCain’s macho, aggressive stance and pounced on Obama for being a limp-wristed wimp, so much so that latter was forced to ratchet up his own anti-Russia rhetoric.

Guess what happened? Tired of years of war and aggression, voters ignored McCain’s swagger and elected wimpy, Russia lovin’ Obama.

What’s more, McCain was later exposed to have massively distorted the truth about the conflict, once details of Georgia’s role in the invasion became more clear.

And Romney is walking into the same double trap.

He has already become unmasked as an exaggerating blusterer. Even the usually anti-Russian Washington Post wrote that Romney “stretches the facts when he suggests Russia has been a hindrance on Iran or North Korea — or routinely blocks U.S. initiatives at the United Nations by “always” supporting evil regimes.”

In addition, he seems to have wildly misread the public mood, just as McCain did in 2008. He’s not just stuck in the Cold War past, as Medvedev suggested, but also he’s stuck in the pre-Iraq, pre-Occupy past. Today’s voters are tired of the U.S. throwing its weight around, and tired of seeing money taken away from social programs to pay for war.

As the Wall St. protests have shown, it’s not Russia that the people are afraid and suspicious of – it’s the growth of poverty and inequality, social intolerance and assault on reproductive freedoms, perpetrated mainly by conservatives, bankers and millionaires. In other words, people like Mitt.

It’s no wonder he wants to change the subject and turn back the clock!

“I will transmit this message to Vladimir”, outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev tells Obama at the Nuclear Security Summit in response to the US leader’s candid assurance that he will have a freer hand after being re-elected next November. Perhaps Obama wishes the US elections had the same sort of predictability of outcomes seen in Moscow?

The private chat, picked up surreptitiously by the world’s microphones, became a sensation due to Obama’s premature boast. But it also offered a cringe-worthy contrast between the supreme (over)confidence of the US president and the obsequious smallness of his Russian counterpart, hurrying to consult with Putin on every issue even while he remains nominally in charge.

“‘I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir’ – Story of poor Dima’s life”, quipped the British journalist Tom Parfitt on Twitter.

The exchange also reflects a painful geopolitical reality: that, behind the illusion of bipolarity maintained by the nuclear talks, it’s a case of the US doing the talking, and Russia the listening. It’s likely that the planned US missile shield in Europe, which America claims is designed to shield an attack from Iran but which the Putin government claims is actually aimed against Russia, will go ahead sooner or later despite Russian objections. As with the last few major international negotiations – over Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria – Russia’s strong rhetoric is likely to precede eventually acquiescing to the West or being over-ruled altogether.

Source: Google images

With the Russian presidential election behind us, and rather predictable western not-so- optimistic attitudes towards their results, one would expect a further cooling of U.S. -Russia relations. The Obama administration belated congratulation to the President-elect Putin and deepening of anti-Russian rhetoric in American political circles are just a few signs of general discontent and disappointment. However, the political cooling could prove to be temporary: while it is likely to intensify during the upcoming presidential election campaign in the United States, it may succumb to existing opportunities to exploit mutually beneficial cooperation.

After these elections, the U.S. and Russia still face the same old foreign policy issues: the missile defense shield in Europe, the UNSC resolution on Syria and nuclear developments in Iran. The divisions between the countries have not disappeared either: the President – elect Putin reiterated Russia’s unaddressed concerns regarding missile defense in Europe, his opposition to military intervention in Syria, and the preference for a diplomatic solution towards Iran’s nuclear issue. Although these divisions on international developments  curb the opportunities for establishing a ‘new matrix’ for U.S. and Russia relations, they do not eliminate them completely. For instance, bilateral cooperation on Afghanistan and the development of economic ties could become areas of productive and beneficial partnership for both sides.

A recent Russian offer to provide an airbase for the passage of U.S. troops and supplies to Afghanistan came at a critical time for the U.S., amid complicating relations with Afghanistan, unresolved transit issues with Pakistan, and the prospect of losing the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan. If implemented, the passage through Russia could diminish U.S. dependence on Pakistan, but it will also give Russia an important stake and possible partnership status in Afghanistan – something Moscow has been looking for for a long time, and rightfully so: geographical location makes Russia the most likely recipient of post-war spillovers from Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal in 2014.

Likewise, Russia’s accession to the WTO gives Russia a pass to the world’s economic network and also carries potentials for economic gains for opportunistic U.S. businesses. Yet, further advancement of the U.S. -Russian economic cooperation will necessitate a review of old practices some of which have long lost their persuasive power. This is relevant to the revived debate on the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the U.S. Congress.

The amendment was enacted in 1974 by the U.S. Congress, and targeted countries with non-market economies or bad human rights violations. In order to exercise normal trade relations with the United Stated, Soviet leaders had to undertake few liberalization policies and allow free emigration for thousands of people.

Considering that Russia continues its compliance with free immigration principles and the fact that it also has been recognized as a market economy, the amendment seems groundless. Even more, Russian opposition leaders point out at the counter – ineffectiveness of the amendment. Not only does it not have necessary leverage to influence democracy and human rights promotion in Russia, it also enables the current regime to maintain the public perceptions of American hostility, and promote official propaganda. Instead, opposition leaders suggest that sanctions, mainly, assets freezes and travel bans, targeting specific individuals involved in corruption and criminal activities, could prove more efficient.

As anti-American rethoric might be lessening in Russia after election, the anti-Russian sentiment is gathering momentum in U.S.’ pre-election discussions via criticism of President Obama ‘reset’ policies and the undemocratic elections in Russia. Nevetheless, the window of opportunity for the U.S.-Russia economic and political cooperation is not completely illusionary. Certainly, the future of the ‘reset’ policies will depend on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election in the U.S as well as on who will represent the dominant forces in Russian and American political circles – security hawks or more liberal, economic-minded decision-makers. As for now, old methods and phobias prove themselves counter-productive for both sides.

Communist Party chair Ziuganov with
supporters in Samara, Nov 2011
(credit: www.dp.ru)

Russia’s March 4th elections will be remembered for several things: vocal demonstrations after December’s parliamentary vote, Moscow throngs denouncing Putin, and the now-household name of protest leader Aleksei Navalny, alternately pictured with megaphone and in handcuffs.

But the most interesting outcome is one hardly mentioned. For all of modern Russia’s state capitalism, oligarchic tendencies, and appetite for foreign goods, the Communists finished second.

Not even Mikhail Proxorov, the billionaire late-entry to the race last fall, could dissuade would-be Communist votes. Proxorov was billed as the common-sense oligarch with a reform streak and the management skills to right a corrupt ship of state. Proxorov finished third however, amid accusations that he was simply a vote splitter and playing a supporting role for a Putin victory.

Gennady Ziuganov, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), has kept his platform center stage since the 1990s. During that decade, rash privatization of state firms soured most citizens on the quick promise of prosperity, revealing a kleptocratic trend that brought many neo-capitalists back into the socialist fold and caused pensioners to brandish photos of Stalin, reminding onlookers of the stability they once enjoyed under a much stronger state.

The CPRF’s election showing is not so much a resurgence as a reminder of recent history and gauge of popular opinion, a sort of indirect poll. Ziuganov is politically consistent, having also run for president in 1996, 2000, and 2008. Many recall the spectacle of 1996 when Ziuganov finished three percentage points behind Yeltsin and forced a second round.

However this is not your father’s Communist Party. In Moscow — and the provinces of Kostroma, Orlov, Samara, and even Dagestan — students and working parents, alongside pensioners, attended party rallies in the runup to the March election, decrying the distrust of Putin’s United Russia and the privatization of once lauded national industries. Observers in Russia have even mentioned the 35-year-old Sergei Udaltsov, a jailed protester in the December protests and leader of the socialist Left Front, as a successor to Ziuganov.

Yet amid the recent commotion about the CPRF, many pundits believe the Communist votes simply reflect opposition support. The impatience with Yeltsin’s reforms in 1996, and the evident, vocal unhappiness with United Russia now, are simply reactions to uncertainty and disgust with overt corruption. Moscow couples cannot afford to have children, and better job prospects still lie abroad.

The 2012 presidential elections are now past but the CPRF marches on. Nationwide demonstrations are planned for April 7th. According to Vladimir Kashin, vice chair of the Central Committee of the CPRF, the “meetings” (as they are known in Russian), scheduled for all provincial centers and large cities, could attract up to two million participants across the country (Echo Moskvy, March 12).

Hardly anyone likes Putin anymore, but he still won the election in a landslide, and is celebrating in style. How is that possible?

Of course, it helped to be the only candidate allowed TV airtime, and a hefty (unlimited) government budget for high-stakes propaganda (including some apocalyptic ads depicting Russia descending into WWII style suffering if Putin didn’t get re-elected. Also, excluding major opposition figures from running was a prudent idea. And it certainly didn’t harm to have a few thousand busloads of people paid to whimsically cast ballot after ballot at different polling stations, in what has become known as “carousel voting”.

However, none of that made much difference to his overall score.

Sure, ballot stuffing helped Putin avoid embarrassment in Moscow, among whose wealthy, upwardly mobile and restless population he barely managed to eke out 50%, if the unofficial observer figures are to be believed. But Moscow is not Russia. It’s like casting doubt on Bush’s victory by pointing out how badly he did in Massachusetts.

No, acording to the Levada Centre, Russia’s foremost independent social research firm, the real reason Putin won was the lack of any reasonable alternative. And for that, the opposition has only itself to blame.

Its crimes: elitism, complacency, tone-deafness and wishful thinking. Oh, and did I mention elitism?

Masha Gessen, an otherwise astute commentator on Russian affairs, is the perfect illustration of what’s wrong with Russia’s “protest movement”.

“The only problem with the “middle-class revolution” image is that it is dead wrong”, she writes.

But yet it’s not. The protests are confined to Russia’s two wealthiest cities. They are a strong internet presence at a time when most people in Russia remain offline. They involve people significantly younger and better educated than the average, people concerned with democracy – an issue that fewer than 5% of Russians see as the biggest threat facing the country (inflation, lack of social services, and unemployment were the top 3). All of this explains their low numbers.

The real reason, however, for the alienation of the protesters from the bulk of ordinary Russian voters (many of whom share the protesters’ frustration with Putin’s authoritarianism and Russia’s corruption) is cultural.

For a start, many senior opposition figures have a barely disguised disdain for their average countrymen. Here is what the famous liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov told the press yesterday about his experiences as a poll observer in a wealthy Moscow neighbourhood: “Я живу на Ордынке, и тут эти гопники толпами носятся, а по улицам ездят машины с ОМОНом. Вы видели хоть одну страну, в которой честно победивший глава государства окружает себя военными и ликующей массовкой из провинции?”/ “I live in Ordinka, and I saw all these ‘gopniks’ running around here, while riot police cars lined the streets. Have you seen a single country where a fairly-elected leader surrounds himself with soldiers and an ecstatic mob from the provinces?”

The key word here is “gopnik”, a derogatory term that translates roughly to “chav” or “redneck”, as well as ‘massovka’, a slur connoting a mass-mob.

We might ask Nemtsov: “Have you ever seen a country where a leader of the supposedly enlightened liberal opposition hoping to create a mass democratic movement uses words like chavs and rednecks?”

This is not an accident, and ordinary Russian people have always sensed the classist venom imbuing Nemtsov and many of his liberal comrades, which might go some way to accounting for his party’s inability to gain even 7% of the vote way before Putin tightened the screws.

For now, many Russian people continue to admire and respect Putin, but increasing numbers are becoming fed up with his personality cult, his empty theatrics, lack of ideology other than power, and his lack of respect for the country’s institutions and voters’ intelligence; with the inability of wages to keep up with inflation, the corruption, the shoddy service provision, the general atmosphere of chauvinism that he has bred in the country.

But it’s not enough to be disillusioned: voters need someone to vote for before they can be persuaded to vote against the devil they know.

The opposition’s inability (and unwillingness?) to capitalise on the biggest crisis facing Putin in 10 years shows that, while they certainly don’t deserve to be arrested, they don’t deserve to be in power either. At least Putin had enough fire in his belly to hire all those carousel voters!

Government of the Russian Federation

Russia is part of the greater world. We do not wish to and cannot isolate ourselves from it. However, we intend to be consistent in proceeding from our own interests and goals rather than decisions dictated by someone else. Russia will continue to conduct an independent foreign policy.

Global security can only be achieved through cooperation with Russia rather than by attempts to push it into the background, weaken its geopolitical position or compromise its defenses.

We will continue on our constructive course to enhance global security, renounce confrontation, and counter challenges like the proliferation of nuclear weapons, regional conflict and crises, terrorism and drug trafficking.

The major principles for any feasible civilization are indivisible security for all states, that excessive use of force is unacceptable and that the basic principles of international law must always be respected. Failure to abide by these principles destabilizes international relations.

Some US and NATO actions contradict the logic of modern development. This is the case with an expansion of NATO that includes the deployment of new military infrastructure with US-drafted plans to establish a missile defense system in Europe.

We are worried that although the outline of our “new” relations with NATO are not yet final, the alliance is already providing us with “facts on the ground” that are counterproductive to building mutual trust.

It is important for the United Nations to effectively counter the dictates of some countries and their arbitrary actions in the world arena. Nobody has the right to usurp the prerogatives and powers of the UN, particularly the use of force with regard to sovereign nations.

It seems that NATO members, especially the United States, have developed a peculiar interpretation of security that is different from ours. The Americans have become obsessed with the idea of becoming absolutely invulnerable. This utopian concept is unfeasible. It is the root of the problem.

A year ago the world witnessed a new phenomenon. The Arab Spring was initially received with hope for positive change. However, it soon became clear that instead of asserting democracy, attempts were being made to depose an enemy and to stage a coup, which only resulted in the replacement of one dominant force with another even more aggressive dominant force.

Foreign interference in support of one side of a domestic conflict and the use of power in this interference was negative. A number of countries got rid of the Libyan regime by using air power in the name of humanitarian support. The revolting slaughter of Muammar Gaddafi was the manifestation of these actions.

No one should be allowed to employ the Libyan scenario in Syria. The international community must work to achieve an internal Syrian reconciliation. It is important to achieve an early end to the violence no matter what the source, and to initiate a national dialogue – without preconditions or foreign interference and with due respect for the country’s sovereignty. The key objective is to prevent an all-out civil war. Russian diplomacy has worked and will continue to work toward this end.

Let’s demand that the armed opposition do the same as the government; in particular, withdraw military units and detachments from cities. The refusal to do so is cynical. If we want to protect civilians – and this is the main goal for Russia – we must make all the participants in the armed confrontation see reason.

The current developments in the Arab world are instructive. They show that striving to introduce democracy by use of power can produce – and often does produce – contradictory results.

Today, Iran is the focus of international attention. Needless to say, Russia is worried about the growing threat of a military strike against Iran. If this happens, the consequences will be disastrous. It is impossible to imagine the true scope of this turn of events.

This issue must be settled exclusively by peaceful means. We propose recognizing Iran’s right to develop a civilian nuclear program, including the right to enrich uranium. But this must be done in exchange for putting all Iranian nuclear activity under reliable and comprehensive IAEA safeguards. If this is done, sanctions against Iran, including unilateral ones, must be rescinded.

In recent years a good deal has been done to develop Russian-American relations. Even so, we have not managed to fundamentally change the matrix of our relations, which continue to ebb and flow. The main problem is that bilateral political dialogue and cooperation do not rest on solid economic foundations. The current level of bilateral trade falls far short of the potential of our economies. The same is true of mutual investments. We have yet to create a safety net that would protect our relations against ups and downs.

Nor is mutual understanding strengthened by regular US attempts to engage in “political engineering,” including in regions that are traditionally important to us and during Russian elections.

In general, we are prepared to make great strides in our relations with the US, to achieve a qualitative breakthrough, but on the condition that the Americans are guided by the principles of equal and mutually respectful partnership.

Vladimir Putin is prime minister of Russia. This article is an abridged version of a longer opinion piece published on the prime minister’s website  in the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper and in a sister publication, the Moscow News.

Last week, my mom, a doctor working at a local polyclinic, was summoned along with all her colleagues to an unusual kind of staff meeting.

The head nurse, a member of the ruling United Russia party, had gathered everyone to remind them of the importance to vote the “correct” way in the upcoming March 4 presidential elections. Though she never explicitly endorsed Putin, she delivered a long lecture about the various achievements of the current government and painted a terrifying picture of a Putin-less world, hinting darkly that the fate of a conveniently instituted pre-election pay-rise hung in the balance.

This kind of thing has been happening in nearly every school, hospital, barracks, university and other state organisation, as well as many large businesses. So it comes as no surprise to read about the climactic, massive pro-Putin rally in Moscow attended by over 100,000 people, many of whom no doubt came as willingly as my mom had done to her staff meeting.

But it’s wrong to read too much into these astro-turfed meetings, a staple of Soviet times endured more with stoicism than animosity. The hapless voters frogmarched to the rally from their factories and office desks would not have come on their own accord, but neither were they likely to run in the opposite direction.

In fact, if there is one thing the average Russian hates more than the government, it’s the decadent, self-satisfied, out of touch, Western-orientated opposition. So much so that, outside of this self-referential circle, few were surprised when Russia’s Paris Hilton decided to throw in her lot with the pro-democracy brigade.

And let’s face it, some of the things they say would grate the nerves of a middle class Westerner, let alone an ordinary Russian. For example, this quote from Yevgenia Chirikova, organiser of the Khimky protests and a key figure in the grassroots opposition, trying to differentiate herself from Sobchak:

“We are from different planets,” said Chirikova. “I was in business and bringing up my children. I didn’t even have a television set.”

To the average Russian reading this, it’s Chirikova who appears to be from another planet. What kind of person, successful in business, would not have a TV set? Unless you’re some sort of Western-style hipster who’s too good to do something 99% of the population do.

Rather than make her seem like an everyman, this kind of bullshit just shows up the vast cultural, as well as material, gap between the liberal opposition – cosmopolitan, metropolitan, eminently annoying – and everyone else.

Thus, it’s no surprise to hear, from a person who confessed to the Guardian about having been paid off to attend the rally, that he will actually not be voting for Putin…but…wait for it: Zhirinovsky, the goofily fascist demagogue (who, on top of it, is also widely suspected of being Putin’s tool to divert the nationalist vote – for all his hilarious bluster, Zhirik has almost never voted against United Russia in parliament).

So, all those who cheer the growing discontent with the Kremlin should keep in mind that a vote against Putin is more likely to be a vote for rightwing nationalism (or worse) than liberal democracy.

For the past two months, the list of accusations against the United Stated in Russian media has become quite extensive. It begins with blaming the foreign government in paying off oppositional leaders in order to create an environment of a political crisis in the country, touches upon ever persistent US – Russia children adoption issues and also involves the recent failure of the Russian space probe. Add to that the announcement by President Medvedev on exposing 199 foreign spies over the last year and a recent military trial of a Russian engineer who was allegedly passing information to CIA, and as a result, this overall picture could not help but create an emotion of insecurity and suspicion of the U.S. among the general population.

The escalating anti-foreign rhetoric and allegations of interference in Russia’s internal affairs is clearly aimed to divert attention from the importance of the ongoing protests and shift public attention to artificially intensified ideas of a foreign threat. How likely is it to succeed?

The perception of an ever-present foreign enemy is still rather strong among the general population. For instance, 2010 polls showed that 33 percent of the Russian population believes that Western countries present the main threat to Russia, while 73 percent perceive the United States as an aggressor seeking to control the world. Yet, the participants of the protests consist mostly of young, educated middle class people who are more focused on domestic issues and might see foreign threats as less relevant, if at all relevant, to their current agenda. Their main demands include fair elections, elimination of corruption and working justice institutions.

So far, the protests have been peaceful but persistent with their general attitudes set against Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, a larger part of the Russian population either supports Putin’s policies, remembering that he brought Russia stability after the dashing 90s, or simply find no better alternative to him. This unshakable support of Putin believers and the peaceful character of the demonstrations present the current regime with time and opportunities to adjust their strategy to a changing political culture in Russia. However, the tools the political leadership chooses to use will define which audience they will be able to reach. While anti-foreign discourse may appeal to many, it will hardly influence the attitudes of a smaller, but critical fracture of protesting citizens.

Voters in Tyumen, Russia, in December 2011 (photo: Mikhail Kalyanov)

While U.S. voters grumble about Congressional deadlock and lack of presidential alternatives, we often forget how good we have it. A slow thaw from autocracy in former Soviet states since 1991 has uncovered various national specimens, from reformer to recidivist. Observers have watched with increasing pessimism as jailed and beaten opposition candidates, single-party access to TV and radio, and the (recently innovative) prime minister / president switcheroo have characterized campaigns from Kiev to Kazakhstan. In comparison, if the Super PAC debate is the worst of American politics, we might say, we’ll take it.

Many will remember 2011 as the year Arab civil society trumped their dictators and moved to the ballot box, so making history. Most former (non-Baltic) Soviet republics however have both a steep Communist legacy to evade and unease with pluralism. Below are snapshots of progress for those nations with elections in 2012.

Russian Federation: Presidential election in March. In the face of disputed parliamentary elections last December and the biggest public outcry since the 1990s, current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appears destined to once again be president, even with the expected second round. Protesters gathering publicly are less muzzled these days and some radio outlets offer surprisingly open criticism of this “managed democracy,” but Putin controls the TV stations (where most Russian get their news), the country’s corporate-industrial players, and the security services. The president also nominates regional representatives and governors, who just happen to be members of his United Russia party. The billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, co-owner of the New Jersey Nets, entered the contest last fall, so far speaking tamely about electoral reform, yet some suspect him a vote splitter who will only assure Putin’s victory.

Ukraine: Parliamentary election in October. In winter 2004, crowds braved December snows in Kiev and spent several dramatic weeks protesting an unfair presidential vote, rallying around the reform candidate, Viktor Yuschenko, eventually elected in a re-run. Pulled between a Russia-oriented eastern part of the country and an EU-leaning western half, Yuschenko made little progress, and in 2010 the less-reformist Viktor Yanukovych took the head office. And take over he has. In 2011, the state prosecutor’s office both jailed former prime minister (and opponent) Yulia Tymoshenko, and then last month threw out a court case accusing former president Leonid Kuchma, a one-time Yanukovych backer, of murdering an investigative journalist.

Belarus: Parliamentary election in September. Head of state since 1995, President Aleksandr Lukashenka overturned his own term limit to stay in office. His election again in 2010 cued mass protest of the vote and international condemnation of police violence during the turnout, including over 600 arrests and first-hand accounts of beatings of candidates and joumalists. There are new jailings almost monthly of opposition activists and anyone who deigns to challenge or criticize Lukashenka. This “last dictatorship in Europe” shows little sign of thawing. Russia changed the name of its security service, while Belarus still refers to its own as the KGB. Parliamentary elections in 2008 yielded not a single seat out of 110 for the opposition, all going to Lukashenka loyalists.

Moldova: Constitutional referendum in April. While we can predict who will rule in Russia and Belarus in the near future, in Moldova we cannot. A patchwork of ethnicities, Moldova has for 20 years been a low-intensity face-off between its dominant Romanian speakers and Russian speakers supported by Moscow. Even borders are debated: some advocate national union with Romania, while residents of the eastern Transdniester region desire complete autonomy. The difficulty of forming party coalitions, and re-runs of parliamentary elections upon failure to elect a head of state, has meant a topsy-turvy journey for its governments. After nine years of Communist president Vladimir Voronin, violent riots in the spring of 2009 indicated less an ethno-linguistic division than simple rejection of corruption and lack of economic opportunity. With no party majority in parliament to determine head of state, Moldova has had three acting presidents since July 2009.

Georgia: Parliamentary election in October. Since Mikheil Saakashvili stormed parliament in 2003 and ceremoniously drank from then-president Shevardnadze’s tea glass, young Misha’s reform movement has fallen noticeably short. Several achievements are notable, including reduced police corruption, a liberalized economic sector, and broad Western support. While authoritarian tendencies have eroded Saakashvili’s once manic fanbase, unsatisfied citizens have been unable to rally a unified opposition, and Misha’s party in 2008 won 119 out of 150 parliamentary seats. Multi-party politics is alive and well – the question is how much the current administration allows them to participate. A new protagonist is Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire with Russian industrial interests, who recently declared himself a 2013 presidential candidate. Whether Saakashvili steps down after two terms will be a strong comment on the country’s pluralistic hopes.

Armenia: Parliamentary election in May. With its third president, Serzh Sargsyan, now in office, Armenia may appear relatively democratic, yet dispute of his election victory in 2008 resulted in violence with security forces, 10 deaths, and jailing of opposition leaders. At the time Sargsyan had beaten by a wide margin Levon Ter-Petrosian, the first president of post-Soviet Armenia, who continues an active opposition. Astonishment at the strong-arm tactics continues to haunt Sargsyan, who is looking to shore up support for his re-election in 2013. There are also rumors that Robert Kocharian, who served as president 1998-2008, may re-enter party politics, which would threaten Sargsyan’s parliamentary majority. To watch between now and May: opposition leaders want to amend the election code, so that parliamentary seats are decided by proportional representation, which would curtail individually elected candidates who tend to be administration cronies.

Kazakhstan: Parliamentary election in January. Re-elected four times, President Nursultan Nazarbaev can now legally stand for election as often as he likes. Many, however, consider this term his last, as the rumor mill spins about his anointed successor, a drama which could be its own reality show since everyone expects power to stay within the family. After a 2007 lower-house election in which all seats were given to Nazarbaev’s party, the elections on January 15 were a faint harbinger of pluralism, as opposition parties crept in with 15 out of 98 seats. Regardless, the president’s party and family control the major industrial and financial interests, and with the help of western PR firms and steady Caspian oil revenue, stage manage media outlets and governance. Investigative journalists and opposition candidates have suffered the same fate as those in Russia and Belarus.

Turkmenistan: Presidential election in February. When the self-proclaimed “Father of All Turkmen,” Saparmurat Niyazov, died in 2006 there was an international reaction similar to Kim Jong Il’s passing: that is, will the lunacy continue or will there finally be common-sense government. One of the biggest megalomaniacs in history, Niyazov allowed zero opposition, built golden statues to himself, and renamed the Turkmen month of April after his mother. His successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, is relatively cult-free yet governs just as strictly, while the would-be opposition is either jailed or abroad. Seven other candidates, presumably alive and in the country, reportedly ran against the incumbent on February 12. The OSCE, which routinely sends observers to post-Soviet elections, again refused to send anyone. Parliament is little more than a rubber stamp for the president.

Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, while not in a cycle this year, do hold parliamentary and presidential elections, though their autocratic leaders brook scant opposition. Political “stability,” if it could be termed as such, can be ascribed to de facto acceptance of the status quo by Western powers due to Caspian oil interests in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and with the anti-terror support role Uzbekistan plays for the US. In contrast, Kyrgyzstan exiled two presidents over corruption in the last six years, and in 2010 made history by reducing presidential powers.

Moscow, unsurprisingly, has sought to limit political reform in its own backyard. When Russia invaded and occupied it briefly in 2008, regardless of how the conflict began, Georgia was the most reformist and US-friendly of the republics. Since the Orange Revolution in 2004/05, Ukraine’s reformists have been methodically dismantled. And when Kyrgyzstan began its experiment with a parliamentary (rather than presidential) democracy last November, Russian officials were outspokenly critical. Yet with its autocrat neighbors, Russia has few political complaints.

Government of the Russian Federation

Social policy has many objectives and many dimensions. It entails providing support for the poor and those who are unable to earn a living for valid reasons. It means implementing social mobility and providing a level playing field for every person on the basis of his or her capabilities and talents. The effectiveness of social policy is measured by whether popular opinion believes the society we live in is a just one or not.

We have a much higher level of social guarantees than countries with a comparable level of labour productivity and per capita incomes. We have made great strides in improving the situation in the demographic sphere, in pensions and in reducing poverty. We have achieved tangible results in the fields of education, healthcare and culture.

But Russian citizens are by no means satisfied with the current situation, and their dissatisfaction is perfectly justified. Today we have to discuss the as yet unresolved issues, as well as the objectives which must form the agenda for the next stage of Russia’s development.

Our system of social mobility functions badly and inconsistently. The glaring income disparity is unacceptably high. Every eighth Russian citizen still lives below the official poverty line. The decline in the national workforce and an increasingly ageing population means the efficiency of social spending has to be increased. People of different vocations, including businesspeople, workers, specialists and state employees, must be given the opportunities to realise their potential, as well as opportunities for professional and social growth.

I am sure that we must develop new economic sectors and continue to develop the processing sector, agriculture and modern transport and intellectual services. This will allow us to perceive Russia as a more equitable country where everyone earns his or her income with their own labour and talent. And the government will provide targeted assistance to those who cannot earn an income or are too young to work.

Assisting families with children is becoming a priority. It is absolutely unacceptable for the birth of a child to bring a family to the edge of poverty. A national goal for the next three or four years is to make this totally impossible. I propose introducing special benefits for the birth of a third and subsequent children in the regions where the population continues to decline. Families where per capita income is not higher than the average in their region will have the right to apply for such child allowances.

Affordable housing is an important prerequisite for improving the territorial mobility of our citizens and enhancing economic competition between urban areas and regions. We will proceed to develop a non-profit rental market for prospective low-income tenants. Today, we assist war veterans, servicemen and new families to buy property. I would like to mention that we will continue this practice – for new families with children, in particular. This is not enough, however. The middle class must have an opportunity to buy property through mortgages Mortgage payments must decrease along with lowering inflation rates. And last but not least, we will increase support of young families and public sector workers in covering mortgage interest. Taken together, [this will] resolve the issue in full by 2030.

Since the 1990s, organisational and economic reforms have been implemented, managerial systems changed, and external assessment mechanisms introduced. This has so far failed to lead to any noticeable changes in the quality of education or healthcare.

I believe that healthcare and education reforms are only possible when they guarantee decent pay for public sector professionals. A doctor, teacher or professor should be able to earn enough on their basic jobs not to have to seek outside earnings. If we fail to fulfil this condition our efforts to change the organisation of the economic mechanisms and renew the material base of these sectors will come to nothing.

Investment in education will be our key budget priority. Not only does education mean that we are training a workforce for the economy, it is also a crucial factor in the social development of society, one that shapes our values and unites us. Our system of education should be able to meet the challenges of the times, but this does not mean that we will give up our most important achievement – the accessibility of education. We need to ensure social equality in education. Schools working in difficult social conditions – as opposed to prestigious “gymnasiums” and “lyceums” which for the most part only work with socially stable children – must be given special support, including methodology, staff and financial assistance.

A fundamentally new legal framework for developing the Russian healthcare system was created in 2011, a well-defined mechanism for the fair distribution of funding to healthcare institutions. Patients will be given an opportunity to choose a doctor and a medical facility. We must work on raising the degree of each individual’s responsibility for his or her own health. Otherwise no amount of money will ever be enough.

The key problem of Russian social policy is not about the amount of resources we use to address social challenges, but the effectiveness and the focus of the measures being implemented. We need to change the situation in the near future, eliminate all sources of loss in the social sector when resources are being wasted or sent to those who can manage without them instead of to people who need them desperately; when we support institutions out of habit without paying any attention to how their work benefits people; when we have the interests of those who work at social institutions above the interests of those for whom they work.

We must reverse this situation in this decade. Each rouble spend on the social sphere must ‘produce justice.’ A just society and economy are the prerequisites of our sustainable development during these years.

Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, is a candidate for the 2012 presidential election. This article contains excerpts from the official translation of an article that originally appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda. The complete translation of the article is available here.