SKOPJE, Macedonia—Janko Bachev is a former agent in Macedonia's secret service who now leads this country's increasingly powerful opposition, and he has modeled himself rather slavishly on Russian President Vladimir Putin: United Macedonia, his political party, emulates the Kremlin's United Russia party to such an extent that its escutcheon bears the Russians' motif and colors, but replaces the bear with a lion.
In Bachev's poorly furnished offices here in the center of the Macedonian capital, pieces of carpet may be peeling off the stairs, but the Russian national flag proudly decorates a corner in the conference room. Call Bachev on his cell phone and you hear the Russian national anthem.
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