Taking a cue from Joshua Tucker’s nice post at The Monkey Cage, I want to signal the various posts at RFE/RL’s blog on Russia, The Power Vertical.

There are a couple of recent posts on the relationship between President Medvedev and PM Putin in the context of the upcoming presidential election, which is now less than a year away.

In addition, it is worth noting that at a speech at the end of last week PM Putin proposed the creation of what he called a Popular Front that would contest the election. The Popular Front would appear to be a United Russia ‘plus’ type of organisation, incorporating independents and social movements.

As far as I can decipher things, this seems to be a way of broadening support for the regime in the context of the forthcoming elections and also perhaps providing Putin with a vehicle to contest the presidency.