Putin Appears to be Making Arrangements for His Installation as a Dictator

It appears that following electionsRussia will attempt to institute constitutional reforms to create a position for Vladimir Putin of "National Leader, which sounds a lot like "president for life".

I think that to a very large degree, the anti-Democratic forces in Russia are currently in the ascendancy because of Western actions following the fall of the USSR.

We defined democracy as allowing Russian property to be stolen by politically connected people largely for the benefit of Western bankers, actively cheered on Yeltsin when he shelled the Russian Duma, and allowed Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign to be neither free nor fair as a result (he controlled all public mass media, and the private mass media was controlled through the Oligarchs, whom he installed).

It's no wonder that the Russian people, and the Russian political class, see Democracy as nothing more than the window dressing for an attempt to prostitute their people.