Slog
News & ArtsSaturday, December 24, 2011
International Meanwhile in Russia
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Is Putin looking down the barrel of his Mubarak moment?
MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of citizens converged in Moscow on Saturday for the second huge antigovernment demonstration in a month, an early victory for activists struggling to forge a burst of energy into a political force capable of challenging Vladimir V. Putin’s power.
... the protests have rattled the Kremlin, which has not encountered widespread political resistance since Mr. Putin became president in 1999. He initially sneered at the demonstrators, saying days after the first rally that the white ribbons they have adopted as a symbol resembled limp condoms, and that they participated only because they were paid by foreign agents seeking to undermine Russia.
But it is more and more clear that government elites are taking protesters’ complaints as a warning and scrambling to head off a more dangerous confrontation. On Saturday, for the first time, two high-level figures connected to the Kremlin were at the demonstration.
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No. The Russian army will have no compunctions about firing into crowds.
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