Power Vertical's Brian Whitmore on "the only thing that appeared spontaneous on an utterly predictable day," an argument between Putin critic Aleksei Navalny, who was barred from the election, and Ksenia Sobchak, a losing candidate and daughter of a Putin mentor.
FLASH: A day after election, Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Russia will not engage in an arms race and will seek constructive ties with other countries, but will defend its interests. (via TASS, Interfax, Reuters, AP)
'Chief' Not 'President'
The editor in chief of state-funded network RT, Margarita Simonyan, asserted that Western policies and attitudes prompted Russians to unite around Putin and made him stronger than ever. She seemed to suggest he could remain in power indefinitely.
Railing against the West and praising Putin in a tirade on Twitter, Simonyan said that "as soon as you declared him the enemy, you united us" around Putin.
"Before, he was just our president and he could have been replaced. But now he is our chief," she wrote, using a label -- vozhd -- that is often associated with Stalin. "And we will not let [you] replace him."
Shpilkin's Statistics Said To Hint At Massive Fraud
You might recall physicist and data analyst Sergei Shpilkin, "Churov's saw," and his suggestions in the past that systematic Russian election fraud was traceable via statistics. (If you don't, you should read this or watch this.)
Well, he's apparently got fresh indications of massive falsification in connection with the March 18 election.
Pussy Riot Issues 'Elections' Clip
Let me get this straight; it's a six-year presidential term, right? :-)
And there's this nugget about the clip via The Guardian.
The video for Elections features paintings by Navalny’s brother Oleg, currently serving a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence after being convicted of stealing money from two Russian companies – a ruling described by the European Court of Human Rights as “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”. Pussy Riot described him as a political prisoner.
The Briefing over at Power Vertical today features Brian Whitmore and Steve Gutterman talking about The Day After.
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