Not long after the smoke from the summer’s fires had cleared away from Moscow streets, the city awoke to the amazing spectacle of multi-channel television attacks on Mayor Yury Luzhkov. The Russian bureaucracy has begun devouring its own kind, targeting one of the country’s purportedly most corrupt officials.
Like everyone in Russia, I have my own opinion on what is happening. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has worked hard since 2008 to shape President Dmitry Medvedev into his bona fide successor, which will allow Putin to retire into private life in 2012 and enjoy his reportedly vast fortune. Putin trusts Medvedev not to go after him when he relinquishes power, but Medvedev lacks authority to stand on his own two feet in the Byzantine corridors of the Kremlin.
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