The logo of President Putin's United Russia Party

Election cheating. A statistical study quoted in Moscow Times argues that United Russia's total was raised in the Duma election mainly, it would seem, by ballot-stuffing late in the day. The study's revised numbers correspond to an assumption in a quick Excel chart I did, to examine the robustness of the result, that United Russia was given an extra 20% of the vote and the others had 20% lopped off theirs. Even so, United Russia would have received more than half the seats and no other party would have got into the Duma.

Another report states (I haven't been able to confirm it -- the CEC site is rather opaque) that the voters' list was reduced about 2 million between the two elections. What I have never really understood is the common practice in many FUSSR states of "improving" the likely results. United Russia and Medvedev would have won big without any fiddling on the margins. I assume the motives to be a strong fear of instability and tendency to over-insure at the top and people wanting to keep the Boss happy at the bottom.

Regional elections. Were held in 11 regions on Sunday. The results mirror the Duma election: United Russia dominates but the KPRF, LDPR and Just Russia made it into most of the regional legislatures.

Street theatre. The normal script was followed: Other Russia insisted on marching without a permit; the police played their part: in the words of Human Rights Ombudsman Lukin, their actions were a "hyper-reaction and excessive"; the Western press reported as planned. On the other hand, an authorised Other Russia protest in St Petersburg passed off without event.

People power. The Co-Chairman of the Association of Lawyers was quoted Tuesday as saying that his organisation was growing rapidly with offices in 58 regions; he claimed it had given legal help to 100,000 people in 2007. Medvedev is the "patron saint" of this group and, given his remarks about "legal nihilism" it is something to watch. Possibly the Kommentariat, now that the siloviki meme is foundering, will start alarming us with Medvedev's secret backing of zakoniki.

Debt crisis. People are beginning to speak of the high level of debt of Russian companies and the strains on them of re-paying it. According to Gazeta.ru they must make about $110B in payments this year.

SoFs. On Saturday the Zabaykal Oblast formally came into existence: it combines the former Chita Oblast and the Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug. There are now 83 "subjects of the federation" in the Russian Federation. The amalgamation process will likely continue: the Soviet-inherited national homelands structure of ASSRs and AOs is largely obsolete (and was always somewhat -- but not entirely -- fake).

Inflation. February's inflation was reported as 1.2% which is about half of January's rate. Year-on-year inflation is reported as 12.7%. High enough, but perhaps the spike is over.

Gas wars. More problems but apparently finally solved. Claiming it hadn't been paid, Gazprom cut deliveries to Ukraine on Monday. But yesterday Ukrainian PM Tymoshenko said the issue had been settled and today Gazprom said full deliveries had resumed. Tymoshenko also has taken another step to liquidate UkrHazEnergo (a murky JV of Naftohaz Ukrayiny, the state gas company, and the even murkier RosUkrEnergo). My guess, when this is all wound up, is that a lot of money will be found to have disappeared somewhere.

Borders. An agreement reached between officials from Russia, Finland and Estonia established new military flight procedures and that military aircraft would be equipped with GPS systems. The idea is to reduce territorial violations which are easy: a fighter cruising at 1000 kph could cross the width of Estonia in a quarter of an hour.

Patrick Armstrong received a PhD from Kings College, University of London, England in 1976 and began working for the Canadian government as a defence scientist in 1977. He was Political Counsellor for the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 1993 to 1996. He has been a frequent speaker at the Wilton Park conferences in the UK.