Huge Gathering of Dictatorship Protesters in Moscow as Putin Tries to Save Stumbling Dictatorship | Democracy, elections, and voting at Democracy Chronicles

On eve of Putin’s inauguration, protest and reaction bigger than expected

The Christian Science Monitor

Thousands of people marched through central Moscow Sunday, on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for an unprecedented third term as Russia’s president, many chanting angry slogans such as “Putin out!” and “Putin is Russia’s shame!” Unlike the mostly peaceful and even good-natured mass rallies.

Police, protesters clash on eve of Putin return

Baton-wielding riot police roughly broke up a Moscow protest rally Sunday on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s return for a third Kremlin term, arresting more than 400 people including top opposition leaders. The clashes just over the river from the Kremlin were the most violent since the first rallies.

Putin inauguration: World view of a Russian feeling dissed 

My first memory of Vladimir Putin – if you can call it a memory – goes back to late 1991, just a month before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when I caught sight of him, without knowing who he was, of course, in St. Petersburg. I was making a series of reports for the BBC in the city.