Timothy Heritage: Putin would do well to heed taper light of Russian protest

Conventional wisdom is that Mr Putin can ride out the protests and return to the presidency in an election in March, but his authority will keep falling if he does not respond to the growing signs of discontent.

Much will depend on the tactics the 59-year-old leader deploys in the coming days and weeks to deal with the problems, and whether the protests spread for any length of time beyond Russia’s two biggest cities.

That test will come tomorrow, when protests are planned across the country, from Kaliningrad on its western top to Vladivostok in the far east, including cities in Siberia, the Ural Mountains, Russia’s Arctic North and its southern rim.

However, co-ordinating protests across a country covering 6.6 million square miles is not easy, especially in winter.

Mr Putin’s strengths are his political experience after 12 years in power, his tight grip on traditional media, and the state apparatus he has at his disposal, including the armed forces, police and the ability to open the state’s purse to appease some of the protesters.

Russia has little tradition of major street protests and many Russians still show faith in the state as their main provider, a trait strengthened in Soviet times.

The 1917 Bolshevik revolution itself was more a putsch by a well-organised group than a mass uprising.

However, the end of the protests would not be the end of the story for the former KGB spy who won respect among Russians by restoring order after the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and reined in Russia’s unruly regions.

The protests have served notice that opposition is growing and discontent is mounting over corruption, a tightly controlled political system dominated by one man and the huge gulf between rich and poor.

It is in these areas where protesters are looking for change.