The recent election to the Coordinating Council of the Russian opposition was a first. Run across the whole country, entirely online, it demonstrated an unprecedented unity between the various factions. Organisers Fyodor Krashenninikov and Leonid Volkov, take a long hard look at its successes, failures and implications for the future of Russia.

Many democratically-minded Russians have seized upon the recent re-criminalisation of defamation as an further example of Russia’s regression during Putin’s third term. They miss the point, argues Poel Karp: Russia does need a law on defamation, but that law needs to apply to everyone, including those who hold office. 

As Putin’s new government beds in and shows its teeth against the protesters, Dmitry Travin takes a look at the generational differences among the opposition. Life experience makes many of the older generation more weary of street protest, yet on other fronts people are beginning to speak with one voice. 

Vladimir Putin unexpectedly pulled out of last weekend’s G8 summit in the USA, sending Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his place. He gave as his reason the need to finish work setting up his new cabinet, but eminent Moscow journalist and music critic Artemy Troitsky has another explanation for the president’s change of plan.

Russia has a newly inaugurated president, but its capital has been shaken by two days of unexpected violence and arrests. Writer Lev Rubinstein was drinking coffee in a downtown Moscow cafe popular with the city’s intelligentsia when riot police arrived, cleared the building, and arrested a number of the customers. This is hardly the behaviour of a confident and legitimate government, he contends.

Are we witnessing the death throes of Russia’s ruling tandem? Since last September, when their (apparently) joint decision to swap posts was announced, speculation has been rife about who President Putin’s next prime minister will be. He made a public promise to Medvedev, but now another infinitely more acceptable candidate is positioning himself for the job, says Daniil Kotsyubinsky

In the second of his analytical articles, Dmitri Travin gives further consideration to Russia’s way forward under its new (or not so new) president, Vladimir Putin. Will he insist on keeping to his hard line or might he take the ‘soft’ option? That too is fraught with potential risk.

The elections are over; the protests continue, though in muted form. Russia’s way forward is not solely a matter of internal politics, but closely linked with Europe’s economic problems. So far Putin has been protected by high oil prices, but he could still prove to be dangerously weak, and what then? Dmitri Travin considers the options

Orenburg is typical of many provinicial Russian towns in that the government does what it wants, while the people try to make ends meet. Despite the rising prices, few Orenburgers see the point in talking about the endemic corruption that surrounds them. For them, it's the bigger issues, such as education and the family, which count, says Elena Strelnikova

Artemy Troitsky believes that Putin’s opponents contributed to their own defeat by taking a winter holiday, while the Kremlin used the time between elections to guarantee a Putin victory by fair means or foul. But opposition groups should get over their disappointment, recognise their potential strength and start working more effectively together. 

Vladimir Putin’s support machine was strong enough to guarantee him victory on 5th March. Putin’s strength is the weakness of the opposition. But he should be worried by the divisions within his own government. His days would be counted if parts of his own elite chose to ally themselves with parts of the current opposition. In such a fragile situation, Nicu Popescu believes that the EU and US should develop a strategy that would weaken Putin and strengthen civil society.

As Russia's opposition comes to terms with Sunday's results, the time has come for sober reflection. The conclusions are clear, if uncomfortable: Putin is back, and he may well be in for a long time.

The debacle of last December's rigged parliamentary elections convinced many people who had previously been politically unaware to sign up and train as election observers. Sunday’s election saw ten times as many observers turn out. A core of them stuck doggedly to their task despite provocations and numerous attempts to thwart them; for some, like Julia Chegodaikina, life can never be the same again.

This Sunday Russians elect their new president in an election Putin is virtually certain to win. Putin's campaign has been notable for its anti-western and anti-American rhetoric, writes Susanne Sternthal. Will this aggressive rhetoric help Putin withstand the challenge of an awakening Russian civil society?

A majority of Russians – and not all of them opponents of Putin – demand modernisation. Yet the predominance of the bureaucratic classes and importance of informal favours in Putin’s Russia makes that a near impossible task. Paradoxically, the only way out for Putin may be to absorb his bureaucrats even further into the running of the country’s business affairs, argues Alexei Levinson.

Navalny’s campaigns against corruption and his clever campaigning have won him a central role in the protests against Putin. But Navalny has also many critics. In his controversial article Daniil Kotsyubinsky, who saw how Navalny’s nationalism ruined a previous protest wave, wonders whether his programme might not end up destroying the democratic movement.

Russians keen to punish Vladimir Putin at the polls on March 4 have four opposition candidates to choose from, but all are tarnished in some way by their links to the government. Grigorii Golosov analyses what voting strategy will work best to build on the momentum of this winter’s protests, and cautions against accepting any of the candidates’ claims to be true opposition material.