A few days before Putin's rigged election on March 4 and the upcoming rally of the opposition against a newly falsified Putin's polls, "Putin, the leader of KGB Russia, threatened the opposition with killings.

Tens of thousands of people marched in downtown Moscow for three hours Saturday to protest against alleged electoral fraud by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in last weekend's parliamentary elections -- and to call for Putin to step down. The government-sanctioned demonstrations in 60 cities across the country marked the largest display of public discontent in post-Soviet Russia.

Addressing a rally outside the Kremlin, Mr Putin had tears rolling down his cheeks as he claimed he had won an "open and honest battle" and secured "clear victory" over his four rivals. Early results suggested he had won more than 63 per cent of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off against another of the candidates and deliver him an unprecedented third term.

MOSCOW - For Dmitry Nesterenko, an entrepreneur in the restaurant business, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's overwhelming victory in the elections was a "disgusting act."

March 27, 2010: After nearly a year of negotiations, Russian and the United States diplomats have agreed on new terms to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expired at the end of 2009. START limits the number of nuclear weapons each nation has.

Russia's newly outrageous legal treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former owner of the country's largest oil company, is a reminder that Russia has yet to grasp the idea of equal justice under law - especially when the Kremlin decides someone is in the way.

Q:IN WHAT sort of society might a 68-year-old man be sent to jail for peacefully carrying his nation's flag in a parade to celebrate Flag Day? A: In Vladimir Putin's Russia, if the man is someone that Mr. Putin -- former president, current prime minister and seemingly eternal ruling-party boss -- happens not to like.

Western analysts portray the Russian government as a virtual dictatorship. Hoover fellow Michael A. McFaul dissents. It would be an odd dictatorship, he argues, that found itself thwarted by a legislature or pushed around by a free press. In both Russia and the West, most analysts portray Russia's political system as an authoritarian regime.

"Truly democratic development is the harmonious development of institutions, and in Russia today, say Putin's advisors, this means slowing down the development of those democratic institutions that have gone too far and allowing the rest to catch up," according to Nicolai Petro, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rhode Island, and former Title VIII-Supported Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute.

Rallies in support of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin