Maxim

Medvedev is a little Jewish lawer, who always served well Putin & Co (he's only 5' tall and with only 99lb of weight). He helped Putin with the laundering of budgetary funds in St.Petersburg. He helped Putin to transfer Gazprom shares from Chernomyrdin's and Vyakhirev's pockets to Putin's one. He helped with making the dirty "election" happened. And so on. Now Mr Putin's appointing his secretary for a president. But this guy'll never be the ruler of Russia. And it's not because the west would dislike Mr Medvedev Russia faces major and dramatic changes in the next couple of years (for the best of Russians at the end). Watch closely.

1. Really? What did he "competently" manage? 2. That's for sure. Putin shows his puppet to the West to demonstrate to the public how soft and "democratic" he is. What a joke! 3. Wrong. He's completely influenced by Putin & Co. Since Putin service in St.Petersburg, till now. Medvedev is Putin's clerk, no more, no less. 4. It doesn't matter. If this guy could be appointed to presidency (not "elected" of course, there's no such thing for Putin's regime and last "election" farce has proven it), then Putin will still rule as prime minister. Mr. Medvedev already insisted that Putin would take a PM chair, because he couldn't imagine this country without preserving "Putin's team" and Putin as a "national leader". With fixed overwhelming majority of Putin's party in the house of representatives, it's just a matter of time to make Russia a parliamentary republic with very limited presidential role. But all the above doesn't really matter. Clock is ticking. Russia will be free and democratic pretty soon.

Putin is a godfather of neo-KGB mafia. This mafia had a war with "Russian" oligarchs for economic power (in fact, not many of them are ethnic Russians, practically none, which explains why truly Russians didn't care much about the fate of the oligarchs). And it succeeded. Now most of oligarchs are controlled by Putin. So the bandit capitalism is settled in Russia for now. Mafia (Putin) rules. Putin himself is pretty ready to be in jail. For his economic crime (started when he chaired foreign trade committee in St.Petergsburg and linked to narco cartels) and for his political crimes, organizing genocide of Russians. If Russians don't hang him themselves one day, the bench in Haage's court is waiting for him.

You read my mind! That's what all Czars, Soviets and neo-KGB thought and think, that Russians are not capable to decide for themselves and elect Russian government which is just for them! And sadly they treat Russians like a livestock. Such "stability" in not better than in a military camp. Such government looks (and behaves) like occupation regime on the conquerred territory called Russia.

a. It was explained to me by my Russian friends. In fact this video was demonstrated to Mr Churov (chairman of Russian central election committee) during his broadcasted interview after the "elections". He didn't deny that video shows the tabulation of votes. Instead he examined the men uniform and claimed that the video couldn't be cut on the election day, because men worn the uniform of so called Emergency Ministry (M.CH.S.) and they were not invited to the pollstations in Moscow. Ironically, it was commented later that Mr.Churov forgot (or didn't know) that days before the election, Emergency Misistry staff WAS invited to control order on the pollstations and people witnessed them there on the voting day b. It's the key. It simply demonstrates how Putin and Co are afraid of Russian people. They can't rely on them (like Chavez tried). They can't afford any "mistake" that Russians could vote for non-Putin's party. So masquerading the "democratic voting" is safer for neo-KGB power, than risking their sits in open fight. You may ask - why do they need all this play with elections then? Simple. To show you and me that they are democratically (legitimatelly) elected government. And I can see that their trick works in many occasions on the West. 'For most Russians, it's a matter of stability' - you say? I'd say, for SOME Russians a stability matters. But for MOST Russians a stability based on lie matters even more serious thing. It's clear evil with all the consequences out of this conclusion.

It was already reported by many sources like The Times, Economist, Guardian, Independent that recent legislative elections in Russia became a shame - all the dirty tricks like intimidation, fraud, bribery applied by Putin supporters to gain convincing victory. Here's another catch - a video was prepared by hidden camera at a Moscow city poll station. It shows how they add new ballots to the vote counting machine.

I'd like to supplement it with another reference - Neo-KGB to Russian resistance – ‘Shut your mouth up!’ http://www.vdesyatku.com/Neo-KGB.html It's about KGB-state opressing Russian opposition. It's about other Russians (not Kasparov like) who most likely will boycott the elections. Putin's regime is trying to put in prison all dissents and reincarnate the Soviet Union. It's already holding the world leadership on percentage of the country population behind bars. And they want even more of that. But I think that on the contrary they would get what they deserved - a national revolution. Russia will be freed.

Agreed. Baltic states are doing exactly what is described by definition of the term nationalism above. At the moment they are exactly national countries, defending their national self-determination. Sometimes it turns ugly, but that's how they want to protect their national identity, after many years of different kind of occupation. This statement is false, at least if you apply it to Russians. I am a ethnic Russian myself (Russian Canadian), and may I say, I Know the Russian history. All the time in Russian history the Empire (under different names) fought against the Russian nationalism. Unfortunately to Russians, most of the times in the last five centuries, the empire prevailed. The most severe defeat was when Moscow Czar completely destroyed democratic Novgorod republic of Russians. Russian nationalists fought against Russia's empire in many people wars led by cossaks Razin, Pugachev, Bolotnikov; they fought together with Polish insurgents ("For your and our freedom"), they fought against Jewish internacionale in Antonov's peasants army in Tambov region... The empire supported xebophoby and always skillfully controlled international tensions ("Divide & Rule" approach). But it always were afraid of idea of letting Russians to build their true national state. People of Ukraine should be happy now after they separated themselves from the power of Moscow. Ukraine promotes nationalism - is Ukraine an empire? No! Federation of Russia promotes multi-culturalism and fights the Russian nationalism. Is it empire? Yes! I disagree. Wars in former Yugoslavia were developed on a base of different religious beliefs. Serbs, Croats and Bosnians are all Slavs speaking the same common language. But they are divided as being Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims. Wars between India & Pakistan were driven mostly because of religion differences. And many religions (you like it or not) served nicely many empires in this world... I doubt it too. If you have said A, you must also say B. Proclaiming Québécois as nation, we'rev provoking next question - why Nation without a state? And so on and so far. Now, please pay attention that ethnic Russians, who are about 80% of Russia's population, are not even mentioned in Russia's constitution as Russian people! They do not have their national state (even inside Russia, as Tatars, Bashkirs, Yakuts, Chechens, Jews have). How do you like Putin's remarks like "Pure Russians do not exist" or "Whoever thinks about Russian national state is either an idiot or provocateur"? Russian nationalism is the only way to build new democratic Russian state! Back to the Great Novgorod? Yes, but with promoting the XXI century progress!