A pratt. Russia deserves better. He could have made a fight of it and reduced the chances of Putin taking over as of old. “Putin is more popular”!!! Hilarious – a very funny way of doing democracy. Of course, Labour do it differently:
“Attila the Hun is more popular than Gordon Brown, but we’ll anoint him leader anyway on the basis of his coffee-shop back-of-the-envelope deal with Blair a decade ago and anyway we’re all scared of him.”
As for Putin, he said that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest tragedy of his life, so you can’t say he hasn’t given due warning of what he’d like to do.
The worst-case but not improbable scenario is that he will step up attacks against foreigners and use this to help him consolidate power for the ruling mafia led by his old KGB chums.
Still, at least with Putin what you see and hear is what you get, but Medvedev is more guilty. He has chickened out. It is always cowards and sycophants who allow dictators to acquire their immensely-destructive power.
Russia needed a braver, wiser man than Medvedev. Kasparov, for example.
