kashin did a short interview with me for Kommersant. — Can we say that under Medvedev the outcome of protest actions has become qualitatively different? In the past, mass rallies of many thousands against a governor were more likely to indicate that Putin would not remove the governor, so that no one would think he was giving in to pressure. But now Boos has been dismissed, and the highway through Khimki Forest has been halted. Has something changed, or does it only seem that way? — Medvedev has nothing to do with it—he is a byproduct of Putin’s system of power. And Putin’s power is based not on some mythical siloviki (members of the security and law-enforcement establishment), but on Putin’s actual approval rating. He is the most popular politician in Russia right now, and he will remain so for the foreseeable future even in hypothetical fair elections with free media. That is the basis of the legitimacy of the authorities’ decisions. However, whereas a few years ago Putin was the most popular politician with a 70% approval rating and almost no negative rating, now he is the most popular politician with a 45% approval rating and a negative rating that is growing even faster. Read the rest in Kommersant