This is my first blog for Russia Today so I'd like to clear up one point. Fate tends to push anyone who works in the media in Russia into two camps; either a pro-Putin or an anti-Putin one.

Because I have a positive view of Russia and won't demonize it, I will be quickly labeled a “Putinist”, so let me just say right now, that I completely disagree with him on significant issues like the WTO and the educational reforms of the last few years. I'm not in it for Putin, I'm in it for Russia, with or without him.

It would be hard to start writing a blog about what's going down in Russia without mentioning the elections and the corresponding protests so why fight the cliche, let's dive right in. The opposition protesters have no defined objectives and this is by far their greatest strength. Having objectives would just block their leadership from achieving their only real goal.

For the Anglophile Russians who are reading this I am sure the above is shocking and offensive, and you'll be sending me countess e-mails about how you “want free and fair elections”, but my question then is, what are free and fair elections? Or better yet, what exactly do you want?

I've asked this question of a lot of people, and I've got a lot of non-answers. I've looked all over the net to see a concrete list of demands from the protesters but I can't find anything beyond “we want fair elections”.  If my memory serves me right, Putin right after the first round of protests wisely asked the protesters’ inner circle to come and discuss their demands, essentially to force some concrete goals out of them, but naturally and logically they declined.

If the protesters did give a list of reasonable and plausible demands, then that would give the government a chance to meet them and (in theory) end the protests. What the protesters need to do (and are doing) is give massive vague demands that are impossible to meet. Why? Because if the demands are vague and/or impossible, then the government won’t agree to them and the protest leadership can say “see they don’t want fair elections, they’re stealing your freedom, revolution now!” This is the real goal; justification for power change in Russia.

The average person doesn’t take a deep look into the specifics of what it’s all about, they don’t know what the demands are or even how things work, they operate on a much more emotional level, and when they hear that the government refused the protest movement’s demands, then they will have all their fears confirmed and feel personally spited, and perhaps spited enough to take action.

Elections themselves are not so much a matter of ballots but a measure of faith (I plan to write an article on this topic soon) For the protests to succeed, i.e. cause a revolution in Russia and destroy any shreds of progress over the last 20 years, the opposition must keep their demands implausible to make the average person feel helpless, oppressed, and that their country has been stolen from them. Making someone feel that Russia isn’t theirs is the best way to take it from them.

­The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.