Prime minister’s supporters emphasise stability of leadership

Putin, stability and strength – three words united the few thousand people who staged a choreographed, if muted, answer in Moscow yesterday to protests demanding Russia’s rulers resign.

Hundreds of people, many draped in the national flag, vowed they would not stand idly by if any opposition party tried to throw the country into turmoil again.

Youngsters and pensioners alike invoked the chaos of the 1990s at the demonstration, designed to show support for prime minister Vladimir Putin, president Dmitry Medvedev and their ruling party United Russia, after tens of thousands protested against them at weekend rallies.

“My conscience told me to come. I support the president, whether it is Putin or Medvedev. I just want stability,” said Alexander Melnikov, 50, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

“We don’t need any more testing times like in the 1990s, when everything fell apart.”

It was a frequent refrain at a demonstration near the Kremlin which the police said was attended by more than 25,000 people. Witnesses put the figure at 5,000 at most.

For Ilya Shushkov, 24, who was a child when the financial crisis struck in 1998, Mr Putin is the “ideal Russian man”.

“He has done a lot for this country. Before Putin, every year thousands of youngsters were being killed in the Chechen war. He stopped it,” said Mr Shushkov.“He’s creating a new Russia, with a Russian style of democracy.”

ELIZABETH PIPER