KEY POINTS:
President Vladimir Putin took another step back towards the Soviet era as he attacked his political opponents and accused them of being in the pockets of foreign governments yesterday.
At a rally that attracted several thousand supporters at a Moscow sports arena, he accused his opponents of plotting street revolution with "Western specialists" in what was his first career speech to a large group of supporters in Moscow.
"Unfortunately, some people in this country treacherously gather near foreign embassies and are hanging around diplomatic missions in hopes of support from foreign funds and governments, not from their own people," Putin said at the rally.
"There are those confronting us who do not want us to carry out our plans, because they have a different view of Russia," he said. "They need a weak and feeble state. They need a disorganised and disoriented society, a split society, so that they can carry out their dirty tricks behind its back."
The view that opposition to Putin and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party should be considered treachery has become a feature of the ruling elite's rhetoric but is reaching new levels in the leadup to parliamentary elections on December 2 and presidential elections in March.
Putin - though not a member of United Russia - heads the party's electoral list for parliamentary seats. United Russia's political programme is based on the so-called "Putin's Plan", which documents major guidelines for the country's development.
Polls suggest United Russia will secure an overwhelming victory in next month's vote. But Putin is taking nothing for granted.
The state-run media takes every opportunity to demonise the opposition and to push claims that a coalition of Russian activists and Western governments, led by the United States, is planning to topple Putin through the kind of street protests that led to the rise of pro-Western governments in Ukraine and Georgia.
"Our opponents want to see us divided," Putin said. "Now that they have learned some things from Western specialists and tried them in the neighbouring republics, they are going to try them here on our streets."
The speech comes at a time of rising hostility towards the West, expressed most recently in a dispute with Europe's election monitoring organisation over the conditions under which it could observe the vote.
The organisation, an arm of the 56-country Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, decided not to send a team to Russia, citing restrictions imposed by authorities.
The opposition coalition Other Russia, led by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, is planning several rallies this weekend.
- AP
