The presidential election is still 6 months away, but speculation about who would stand i.e become president had reached fever pitch. A section of society really hoped that Medvedev would continue his liberal policies, even though signs that this could happen were few and far between. Now there is clarity – and disappointment, says Alexei Levinson

During the perestroika years there was much talk in Russia of the need for an act of repentance to assist people to come to terms with the Stalinist purges of 1936-7 and the ensuing years. There was no such act and a recent poll has revealed shifting perceptions of that period. But the victims are as much those left behind, marked for ever, as those who lost their lives, says Alexei Levinson

On the eve of Presidential elections, Dmitry Medvedev has sprung to life and inserted political distance between himself and Putin. Polls show Russians would like both leaders to stand for election, and to choose between them, but such a democratic development would be highly unusual for Russia, writes Alexei Levinson.

In the course of twelve months, Russians will go to the polls twice – first, the parliamentary elections and then the big one: the presidential. Comparisons between Medvedev at this stage of his presidency and his predecessors are interesting, explains Alexei Levinson. Yet the Putin-Medvedev situation is unique and it’s difficult to see how it might develop.

Many Russians experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union as defeat in a third world war and held Gorbachev responsible. However, a recent Levada Center survey shows attitudes are changing. 43% now see the end of the Cold War as a victory, Alexei Levinson reports. And whatever the regime thinks, most Russians no longer see the West as a threat.

Rather than emphasising friends and allies, today's Russian leaders prefer to single out their enemies, writes Alexei Levinson. It is an approach that plays on Russians' traditional psychological comfort zones, while at the same time allowing politicians to evade responsibility at home.

The NKVD’s mass execution in 1940 of Polish officers in Katyn Forest has complicated the often tense relations between Russia and Poland. But the plane crash on 10 April 2010 brought the countries closer together. Russia’s Levada Center has recently carried out a survey into Russian attitudes to Poland and Katyn in particular. The results were sometimes startling, as Alexei Levinson recounts.

Russia’s people do not bow to government opinion on the subject of war, a revealing survey of public attitudes by the Levada Center shows. The only ‘just war’ is one fought in defence of home and country, like the World War II. By this token, Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya were unjust wars.

The Levada Center has been monitoring Russian attitudes to Stalin for years. Alexei Levinson, reviewing changing attitudes to this iconic figure following the Center's latest survey, finds that he remains popular, and that people are strangely forgiving of his crimes. But there is some resistance to the way the authorities exploit his image to their own ends

In the first of his regular monthly reports for odRussia, Alexei Levinson of Russia’s prestigious Levada Centre offers a round-up of Russian public opinion at the start of 2010. Even when the economic crisis lead people to judge their government, he notes, approval of Prime Minister Putin remained high. Nor do people seem particularly bothered by Russia’s imaginary elections