The latest move by the Kremlin to shore up its rule comes after claims that it has been using infiltrators to stir trouble at anti-government rallies, giving the police an excuse to disperse them. In the eyes of many, the tactics are more reminiscent of the Hitler Youth of pre-war Germany than of the supposed democracy in Russia whose health Mr Putin indignantly defended when he met President George W Bush last week. Andrei Pointkowsky, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, said: "Putin is behind this. Scared by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Kremlin is trying to form a Putin Jugend to suppress future opposition. Putin has had a catastrophic loss of authority. People are finally beginning to realise that the emperor has no clothes."
Ignore the main line of the article-- about Putin's setting up a "youth group" of brownshirt-style thugs-- and focus on the subtext: Putin's headed for a fall. I predict that he will either be overthrown by his FSB handlers or else forced out by mass protests before the end of 2006. Note also that any sharp fall in oil prices would bring him down faster than Kuchma.