Putin’s Russia Hits the ‘Clear’ Button on the Medvedev Era
It started right after he surrendered the Russian presidency to Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Putin reversed his predecessor’s decision to decriminalize slander, made just eight months earlier. He raised the retirement age for top officials to 70, foiling Mr. Medvedev’s attempt to “rejuvenate” Russia’s government by imposing an age limit of 60, or 65 in special cases.
Alexander Rahr, a Russia scholar and author of a biography of Mr. Putin, said hard-liners around Mr. Putin blamed Mr. Medvedev for the burst of dissent that shook the Kremlin last winter. According to this critique, Mr. Medvedev’s presidency ended the “climate of fear” created during Mr. Putin’s second presidential term. Though Mr. Medvedev did not push through significant structural change, influential insiders contend that he “created an atmosphere” that led to protests, Mr. Rahr said.
“They are furious,” he said. “They think Medvedev woke up this new Russian revolution.”
Konstantin Remchukov, the editor in chief of the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, says the political chill that set in this summer is familiar to anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/world/europe/medvedevs-handiwork-is-erased-in-putins-russia.html
It would appear that the "Russian Spring", such as it was, is over. We will see how his "new Russian revolution" survives two more Putin terms.
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