The biggest fear of Mr. Putin since 2004, when the Ukrainian Orange Revolution happened, was the repeat of a similar scenario in Russia. That's why he created Nashi, which translates as “Ours”. It was a pro-Kremlin youth organization designed to control the streets, to keep the opposition from the streets, and to harass human rights activists and opposition supporters. But of course for all the efforts they put into this, they failed, because over the past year we've seen tens of thousands of Russian citizens coming out on the streets in the biggest cities, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, to protest against the corrupt and authoritarian regime of Mr. Putin and to demand democratic rights and a civic dignity, essentially. Exactly the scenario that they feared began to be realized a year ago. In fact, a year ago yesterday was the first large demonstration.
Their initial reaction was to offer concessions. You will recall they reinstated gubernatorial elections, which they had previously abolished. They eased requirements for presidential candidates to register for the ballot and they eased requirements to register new political parties. That was their initial reaction, because they were really genuinely afraid in December 2011. It was really sudden for them. They had gotten used to essentially apathy and public indifference over the previous decade, but any autocratic regime passes that line between indifference and indignation, and Putin passed that line a year ago and people came out on the street.
What they have been trying to do in the past few months, as I touched on in the opening statement, is to increase repression in the hope of driving up fear and driving the opposition movement down with these new laws, with the massive beatings, for instance, of demonstrators during the protest against Putin's inauguration in May, when more than 1,000 people were detained and 50 people were beaten over two days.