President Putin redux

Well, well, well. So President Medvedev is going to step aside and let Prime Minister Putin become the candidate in next year's least interesting presidential election for the only party in Russia that is likely to be allowed to have meetings and space in the media, United Russia.

Medvedev, who became president in 2008 when Putin had to leave the office because of term limits, always has been seen as Putin’s protégé. Putin became prime minister, and has continued to hold the reins of power here.

At Saturday’s United Russia congress, Putin called on Medvedev to lead the list of party candidates in December’s parliamentary elections. Medvedev accepted, then said he couldn’t do that and remain as president as well. His term expires in March.

Then Medvedev called on the party to back Putin for the presidency. His suggestion was met with a prolonged standing ovation.

And how familiar does that sound?

In another news from Russia we hear that the historian Mikhail Suprun about whose arrest for investigating the fate of German prisoners under Stalin was covered on this blog, has now gone on trial.

Mikhail Suprun has been charged with breaching the right to private life by obtaining names of ethnic Germans deported to the northern region during the 1940s and 1950s, For Human Rights, a Moscow-based group, said in a statement.

The case, investigated at the instigation of the FSB security service, has provoked concerns with rights group since Suprun gathered the names and details for research in collaboration with the German Red Cross.

As a certain 50 year old magazine would say: that's enough Russia (Ed.).