Briefing | Putin’s Russia

Call back yesterday

Twelve years after his first election, Vladimir Putin is becoming president of Russia again. The country is a lot harder to control now

|CHEREPOVETS, MOSCOW AND VOLOGDA

HE GAVE it all he had. He quoted from Martin Luther King—“I have a dream” —before moving on to Lermontov's poem Borodino—“By Moscow then we die/As have our brethren died before!”—and then seamlessly into Vyacheslav Molotov—“The fight continues. The victory will be ours.” He worked the crowd hard: his voice roared, his face twitched. 100,000 people brought in from all over Russia cheered.

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Call back yesterday"

The beginning of the end of Putin

From the March 3rd 2012 edition

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