Spot on Putin, there is a right to assemble, not a right to assemble wherever you wish in opposition to everyone elses' rights and freedoms. There is no right to troublemaking, nuisance, terrorism, subversion or anything else that is just designed to cause trouble in society. If you go against the law then you take the consequences; you are a lawbreaker, it's as simple as that. Yes the honesty is that if there is enough illegal activity, then you can overide a goevernment, this is the final 'safety valve' in any society, but that is coup or revolution, and it is out of scope of any discussion on Russia, even though the west attempts it continually for access to resources, through paid for activists. But in Russia we should be looking past all of this old hat protest, the fighting in the street outdated and outmoded western power struggle. The modern way is the internet, that is the way it happens now, which is quite nice because it is much wider than the street activist thug, and allows the quiet ones to have their say in an individualistic way, without the lynch mob slogans and bonding. Leave all that to the west. An activist elite is just as bad as a banking elite, holding normal citizens to ransom, under threat of disrupting and ruining their lives No just keep on enlaging the internet space into the normal citizens viewable space, have messaging boards accessable from TV (even add a back channel), have critique and aternative suggstion boards big in cities, with only censorship for foul content, race hate.... just some common sense. But let's build alternativeism, where people suggest different approaches and let's get away from the NO,NO, NO mentality, break it all... of the diruptors, who offer nothing positive, no suggestions and just wait for a western puupet paycheck in return for Russia's resources. It's these western funded future Oligarchs that are the real danger to democracy and civil society. Hit them on the head every time!

I'm according to PM Vladimir Putin. ¿Why? As I observed in the course of my life, ever is the same in whatever country where take place this kind of protests. Behind these, exist a lot of wicked or unjustified intentions. ¿Whose behind this? . Sexual perverters. - Foreign corporates or governments in the form of human rights organizations, - Domestic corporates / politic opposition / politic opportunists - Criminals. - Social agitators - Illegal immigrants. - Etc,...etc. Changes in the Reform must be made by legal and pacific via. We must take into account that changes are not made from night to morning

Prime minister Putin's warning is timely. The promise of a reset in Western relations with Russia remains so far a reset in language only. NATO still seeks to expand further along Russia's borders. There is no agreement on ABM missiles in Europe. Russian/EU travel is still bound in visas and red tape.And so on. Now I am certain that Prime Minister Putin would rather stay Prime Minister of Russia(concentrating on the economy). But this requires above all friendship demonstrated in deeds. Otherwise hostilities are bound to grow between Europe and Russia. For these geographical neighbors neutrality is not an option. As to Prime minister Putin's observation that successful protests that lead to concessions by the authorities will inevitably generate more protests. That is how civil society works. It poses no real threat to civil power since the protesters seek to modify that powers program not overthrow it. And it is the very formation of such channels of protest that secure the governing regime. But the essential point for European politicians is surely this if you don't want to hear another ' A hungry Wolf that eats and listens to no one' speech by a third term President Putin then now is the time to act.

Since the orange revolution has failed, the imperialists are now changing their tactics in the hope of targeting Putin. It is pertinent that they are targeting Putin because of his domestic successes not any new major foreign policy initiatives.

Pardon my ignorance...but is there not some kind of 'Ombudsmans' office in Russia ? i.e. a central Government agency to which citizens can make written complaints regarding bureaucratic failures. In other European countries, the Ombudsmans office then analyses these complaints to identify common threads, a solution is devised, tested and then implemented in such a manner as to eliminate the root cause of that type of complaint in future. Although the Ombudsman office rarely can help the individual complainant (as they deal only with the substantive underlying issue rather than get involved in personal cases), the complainant has the satisfaction of knowing that their positive engagement with the correct authorities will have lead to many other citizens not suffering from the same bureaucratic error in the future. Realistically, not every problem is tackled at once...every few years a major issue is selected, tackled and resolved such that it no longer generates public disquiet. Over time, the range of issues complained about reduces, the severity of complaints reduces and the public gains extra confidence in the bureaucratic structures which serve their interests. Likewise such an approach helps to identify the 'rent-a-mob' brigade who seek to jump on-board every single public issue, trying to generate instability and public disquiet.

Russia’s opposition groups and their foreign backers are unhappy because almost all the key indicators are looking up for Russia: Birth rates in Russia is now higher than almost all the Western European countries, morality and morbidity is down sharply, living standards are up despite set backs in recent weeks because of the global recession. Russia is heavily investing in the national infrastructure, in building new highways, speed trains, space launch sites, new high-tech incubation centre and rebuilding Russian defense. But of course, Russia cannot be left along to move forward. Thus, everyday certain western media outlets write lies about Russia’s very popular Prime Minister. Mr. Putin is accountable only to the Russian people. If he keeps his contract with the Russian people, these provocations cannot undermine Russia’s march toward the future. Putin needs opposition but these opposition groups must first seek the support of the Russian people. So far most of them seem to prefer shouting in English to western cameras than mobilizing the Russian people.

Build the far east and bring greater development to Russia's Far East, and to other parties of the country. Do not worry about the false tears and the false cries of the imperialists. http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/08/30/17920375.html

Russia doesn't appear to have anyone, like Glen Beck, who has a dream. America could loan Russia some dreamers like Sarah Palin, Glen beck, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi etc, if Russia will promise to keep them and not send them back. Russia needs to experience the nuisance of some of the trouble makers Americans have had to endure. They had a dream, but it was our nightmare.

The snag with the idea of demonstrations requiring prior approval from authorities is that the approval mechanism can become a means for authorities to suppress dissent. The previous government in the UK introduced similar legislation - both this and anti-terror legislation have been used to stifle criticism of the authorities. Maybe it would be better for laws which limit the scope of demonstrations i.e numbers of people allowed, not blocking streets, no violence allowed, etc. I am a bit puzzled by the rather draconian behaviour of Russian authorities in this respect. Putin and his party seem very popular around Russia and do not need to suppress opposition voices. More discussion of the opposition groups might expose their ideas as only pertaining to a few limited issues and not covering the broad range of issues faced by the country as a whole.

Babeouf, As usual, excellent points. You say ".......successful protests that lead to concessions by the authorities will inevitably generate more protests. That is how civil society works. It poses no real threat to civil power since the protesters seek to modify that powers program not overthrow it." Of course this statement is correct, but what if the protesters seek to overthrow it (the powers). This takes us outside the scope of this correct sentence. Indeed if you take the current situation of Russia, in the context of the first part of your paragraph - that NATO is encrouching and the latter part of the paragraph - that the EU better modify their position unless they want to see Russia becoming protective.... Then I have my doubts wether these activists want to modify anything and instead their not so hidden agenda is the destruction of Russia for the benefit of the west and a western paycheck for themselves. What gives me more belief in the fact that these protesters, do not want to modify, but rather destroy, is that they always meet and conspire with the west, they never stand up for the rights of security services that have lost their lives in the fight against terrorism, and they never put forward a view of a modern succesful Russia and how that should be achieved to be a driver in a multipolar world. I never see one ounce of responsible healthy nationalism from them. I just see westernism and Russian destructivism spouted from their lips on every occassion possible. They never talk to Russia they just talk to the west. Add to this the links they have to the king colonial puppet creator, the UK, who harbours terrorists acting against Russia, and who has active trained puppets in Afghanistan and Iraq and whose security services run active subversion programs in Iran and Russia. Civil society has to knockout uncivilised behaviour, and there can be nothing more uncivilised than creating strife to destroy countries through subversion!

There are many forces vying for influence in Russia. Europe wants to bring Russia under its control because it needs Russia’s resources. I think Putin is collaborating with objective in the area of energy sphere. There are also those who see Russia as primitive nation full of resources. And there are those who want to rule Russia for the benefits of foreign imperialists and for their own personal enrichment. The oligarchs who run Russia before Putin came to power represent this view. Putin needs to move great deal quicker in the process of distributing the wealth from top down and the oligarchs are still too powerful. Yesterday, I saw he made lot of noise on things as high gas prices for Russians and also very high air fair in Russia. He needs to translate these gestures into concrete actions. Bottom line: Putin can meet the needs of the Russian people and continue to appease the oligarchs. The current so-called opposition groups are provocateurs but that does not mean all is well the way Putin and his party have allocated resources. Putin must speedy up the current plan of massive developments in different regions of the country. The power and the influence of the oligarchs must be further delimited and the economy must be directed at providing maxim benefit to the Russian people. If Putin and his party improve the lives of ordinary Russians, these oppositions will not be able to challenge Russia’s path to stability and prosperity.

JG, it appears the local police are under the direction of the local mayor, not the Federal government although I think they are Federal. Putin and Medvedev have both said in the past year that they agree with opposition parties' right to hold public protests - maybe Putin was more grudging about it but he did say it. However the favorite square for Moscow protests is also where the mayor wants to put a parking garage or something similar. I suspect the latest anti-protest actions are by the local government.

Why don't they do what the Communist Party does? From an RT interview I saw, the Communist Party leader said they always gets a permit before they demonstrate, and so their gatherings are never torn to shreds like this. And as Count Cash has pointed out, these protesters never address anything specific to Russia, like high food prices. But the last time I saw a Communist Party protest, they were protesting against rising inflation and increased unemployment (was a while ago). Why don't the others ever protest about something happening in Russia? And why do they speak English??

lolo Not only Article 31 agitators almost always speak English to the media but almost all of them carry expensive Cameras! The reason is because they are backed by foreign agents.